Grape Arbor/Supports; Squash Bug Control; Hunting for Huckleberries in the Idaho Back Country

Setting up a Grape Arbor/Supports; Squash Bug Control; Hunting for Huckleberries in the Idaho Back Country - Update August 15, 2015 - Back to the Homestead

This update will focus on:

1) Setting up a grape support from an old existing fence.
2) Controlling Squash Bugs with a Shop Vac
3) The changing soil biology and rapid, late-season growth
4) An update by a walk about around the Homestead

Update August 15, 2015



Here are some links to items found in the video:
 

Making Worm Compost Tea - Back to the Homestead



Throw out all your chemical fertilizers and start making your own compost tea. Not to mention you'll find an avenue to dispose of your food scraps. Think about it: You've just finished your meal and have scraps left from when you were cooking your meal, your 8-year-old didn't finish all his and you're left with the task of either throwing the food in the garbage or composting it.
An idea is to feed the scraps to worms! Worms? Why worms?

Making Worm Compost Tea



Supplies needed:

30+ gallon container with a lid
Two Port Aquarium Air Pump
Two Aquarium Air stones
5 Gallon Paint Strainer
1 Bottle of Maxicrop Liquid Seaweed 1 Quart (or equivalent)
1 Bottle of Alaska Fish Fertilizer 5-1-1 Concentrate 1 Quart (or equivalent)
Roughly 30-35oz of unsulphured molasses (the kind you can eat or the horticulture molasses (avoid the feed molasses))
2-3 Gallons of Worm Castings (either home-grown or purchased (use compost or garden soil if worm castings are not available))

Here are some links to the equipment we used in the video:
 

Making Sourdough Bread

Making Sourdough Bread - Back to the Homestead

There are three videos that I have attached to this blog post. The first two make up part 1 and part 2 of the long version (about 30 minutes total viewing). The third video is the short version (where I don't blab so much).

Making Sourdough Part 1 (Long Version)



Making Sourdough Part 2 (Long Version)

Making Sourdough (Short Version)



If you've never made sourdough bread before, you may be surprised to know that it is very easy to make. There are just a few ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of sourdough starter
2 TBL Oil
2 cups of flour
1/2 TSP salt
2 TBL Sugar

We'll talk about the yeast in a bit.

What I do is mix up my "dry" ingredients first and then my "wet" ingredients before I mix the two together. Next, I take a firm object (my wooden spoon) and mix the ingredients into a crumbly, messy mess before pouring the contents onto a dry work surface.

Kneading the dough is a workout. There's no real motion or pattern to follow; it's more-or-less a "feel" for the gluten strains to bind and create an elastic feel. If you dough is too sticky, add some flour. BUT, keep kneading and only add small amounts of flour to allow the dough to absorb the dry flour a little bit at a time to avoid adding too much. Adding liquid to the dough is much more difficult than adding dry flour. It's better to start too sticky than to start too dry.

You're first loaf will probably be a brick. Yes, you need to expect to fail on your first attempt. Keep on keeping on until you get a nice loaf. You can always add your comments here or on the You Tube video and let me know what troubles you're having. Sooner or later, you'll develop a GREAT loaf.

Adding yeast?? I like the nature of sourdough. If there was ever a time where ingredients were difficult to locate, I would say that yeast would be the first to become scarce. The more self-sufficient I can be the better. I'd suggest adding yeast to this recipe for two reasons:

1. You are using a bread machine
2. You are using a sourdough starter that is not active.

Good luck!

The Bathtub Wormbin

The Bathtub Worm Bin

November 23, 2013

We’re getting down to business.

These videos serve a dual purpose. They serve to both give back and to work as a mutually beneficial learning tool.

Giving Back

There are three ethics in permaculture:

Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply. This is the first principle, because without a healthy earth, humans cannot flourish.

Care for the people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence.

Return of surplus: Reinvesting surpluses back into the system to provide for the first two ethics. This includes returning waste back into the system to recycle into usefulness.

The “Return of Surplus” ethic is not all about giving your homegrown goodies away. It’s about taking what you have gained from your efforts and putting the surplus back (“back” is where you feel it should be) to promote a sustainable system. It does not only deal with the “extra” tomatoes that you give all your neighbors. Giving back from your sustainability can come from your gardening efforts, your home efforts, your hobby efforts, your energy efforts and even your learning efforts. I have learned so much from others (You Tube videos, Blogs, Web Sites, Magazines, Books, Podcasts); it only makes “permaculture sense” to take what I have learned and give that back.

The Mutually Beneficial Learning Tool

Am I a professional permaculture designer? No! Not even close. I am just getting started on my permaculture adventure. However, I feel that if I learn something from someone and then teach it to another, I have solidified that information in my mind. Making these videos helps me organize the lessons I have learned, repeat the information while practicing the fundamentals of the lessons learned and to offer an avenue of motivation and criticism (I need all I can get of both) from you the viewer.

By nature, we humans want to share what we know. How many times have you been in a conversation and all the while the other is speaking you’re thinking about what you want to say? You Tube is a great avenue for others to tell the world what they know. But also for the “others” to comment back and say, “Dude! That’s not right at all.” OR “Have you considered ‘this’ or ‘that’?” The comments I receive from you, the viewer, help me learn more and more about the information I present.

This week we are making a worm bin out of a bathtub. I filmed this video concurrently with the last video I made but have been holding onto it for the past month. There will be a follow-up video very soon showing the progress of the worm bin and how it’s holding up.

The New Homeatead

We Found a New Homestead

November 23, 2013

The New Homestead – An Introduction

We found a new homestead and are pleased to be showing it off.
We searched high and low for a new homestead and settled on a nice home sitting on about 5 ½ acres. They are long acres which actually make the property “feel” like it’s sitting on much more.

It’s a semi-fixer-upper

We wanted a turn-key home in order to focus on the property itself instead of trying to fix up the home and work on the property as time allows. It’s amazing how little time a working couple has left when trying to balance work, a child, a mother-in-law (yes, you heard that right) and daily chores. What time we have left we spend working on the home and the property.

The Mother-in-Law

When we were in Idaho, our mother-in-law lived in her own, small, independent-living apartment. When we arrived here in an area with 6x the volume of people, there were NO apartments similar to what she had been living in. We looked for “regular” apartments and were turned off by all the “interesting” neighbors (a teenage boy sitting on a child’s swing with head phones bigger than his too-small head who actually took time to stand and pull his pants DOWN lower than they already were to expose more of his tighty-white-ies may not be the best neighbor-type for a 60-something single lady). Needless to say, she ended up with us “until we find her a place to live.” When you add that all up, it equals – FOREVER. It’s not that we don’t like her, we just…well…you know. Let’s move on.

Where to Start?

Where do we start? This property is a blank slate. There is nothing that even resembles “permaculture” on the 5 ½ acres. Every system has a need for laborious and outside intervention in order to maintain the system. Sure, there are trees that are more-or-less a wind-up-and-go system yet there are roots exposed to the top of the ground. We have to start somewhere and the two places (yes, I said two starting places) will be the main garden and the kitchen garden. We also need to map out the property better and prepare for each system, the zones (more on that later) and plan for the planting date in the spring.

What’s Next for Back to the Homestead?

The gardens! Yes, we have to get started on the gardens. However, we have to start setting up systems for the day-to-day. I’d have to say that we need to set up a way to manage the kitchen scraps that we four (myself, my wife, my son and my mother-in-law) produce on a week-to-week basis. The solution: A worm bin! Next time on Back to the Homestead we’ll talk about making a BATHTUB WORM BIN!

See you soon.

Chicken Mulch and Beets

Chicken Mulch and Beets

November 21, 2012

Making Chicken Mulch and Harvesting Beets; Garden Update - Part 1:2



Making Beet Kvass and Chocolate Beet Cake - Part 2:2



This week we'll spend some time talking about the benefits of chickens. Yes, chickens can provide eggs and meat but what about mulch, fertilizer and even companionship? Chickens are an awesome animal. Simply by "doing their thing," they till the soil and rid it of many of the pests including insects and weeds. While they "cleanse" the land, they drop small white-coated "packages" indiscriminately along the way (poop) that increases the fertility of the land.

Mulch is a great way to conserve the moisture in the soil as well as promote animal and microbial activity at and beneath the soil's surface. Straw is a great mulch. However, here in Idaho (and likely where you live too), the spring winds blow the dry, freshly applied straw mulch all about the garden. The solution that I have found is to take 3-4 (or more) hay/straw bales and break them up in the fall for the chickens to root and scratch around in. They poop as they scratch and eat nearly ever little seed and grain kernel they find. The fall and winter rains and snow saturate the straw and increase its weight thereby making it more difficult to blow about when the rains and wind come in March and April.

Beets are a great food. Beets contain sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron and phosphorous as well as  vitamins A and C and niacin. Studies have shown that beets guard against cancer, especially colon cancer.

There are many, many recipes that beets work well in. The two recipes that I will introduce this week are:

1. Beet Kvass - Lactic acid fermented drink
2. Chocolate Beet Cake

Beet Kvass Recipe

2 Large Beets
½ Gallon of Water
2 Tsp Salt

Peel the beets and cube in 1-2" cubes. Fill a half gallon jar about 1/2 full of water. Mix in the salt. Drop in the beet chunks until the jar is about 1/3 full of beets. Fill the rest of the jar up with water. Let ferment for 2-3 days and then refrigerate. Drink ½ to 1 cup a day. Cycle can be repeated once with the same beets.

Chocolate Beet Cake


1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup butter, melted (vegetable oil works too, but the flavor is not as good)
½ cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1½ loosely packed cups very finely grated raw, peeled red beet

1. Set an oven rack in the middle of the oven with plenty of room above it and preheat the oven to 350°.

2. Coat an 8½- by 4½-inch loaf pan with butter, and then a light layer of sugar.

3. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. In another large mixing bowl, using a large whisk, whisk together the butter or oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until creamy and smooth.

5. Stir the grated beet into the butter mixture.

6. Add the flour mixture to the butter-beet mixture and with a large spatula, combine gently but well. No flour should remain visible in the batter.

ENJOY!!

Saving Tomato Seeds

Saving Tomato Seeds
and
Zucchini and the .357 Target Practice



What happens to a zucchini when shot with a .357? In this video, we discuss all kinds of things from saving tomato seeds to planting a whole tomato right in the ground. Yes, we planted a whole, vine-ripened tomato right in the ground and covered it with grass clippings. Crazy? Maybe...unless it works...then everyone will start doing it. Oh yea. Don't forget...we answer the question: What happens to a zucchini when shot with a .357 hand gun?

Saving seeds use to be a mystery to me. However, in recent years I have come to realize that if someone else can do it, so can I. Sure, there are a few limitations; as a 42-year-old over-weight nurse, my chances for piloting the space shuttle are slim to none. Saving seeds will be a mission here on earth that I will be successful with.

Have you ever heard of The Self Sufficient Homestead? The couple who produce their podcast also has a seed trading site that is FREE to use. Here is the link to the seed site: http://www.heirloomseedswap.com/

The link to the Self Sufficient Homestead is: http://www.sshomestead.com/

Here are a few links: