Winter Garden

As you can see from earlier posts, one of my experiments this year was with four-season, hoop house gardening. I really wasn't expecting much for the first small try, but I have to say that I am thrilled with the results. Here's today's Bok Choy and Merida carrot harvest. Isn't that gorgeous?
Some days I have little white turnips ready to harvest, other days it's chard or corn salad. I love hoop house gardening in the winter.

Introducing: The Ducks

The red light is from their heat lamp; without their feathers grown in they can get chilled. I'm not at all an expert on raising ducks now, but I do have expertise on raising ducks in a bath tub. For those of you who are charmed by this picture and want to try it, I have two words: duck shit. You really have to not mind it...or mind cleaning the bathroom twice a day and a certain (large) amount of sleep deprivation.
I have to say that after doing this for a month that I have a new appreciation for the phrase "duck soup". And no, it's not edible.

Blame the Ducks

It's been almost a month since I last posted. The reason would be: ducks. Or, as in this case, ducklings which arrived at 3:00 am December 2 at the post office. I had alerted the Post Office the day before, so they knew to call me in the early morning. This is an agricultural area so they do get a lot of chicken deliveries, although ducks aren't popular here. Perhaps because our long dry summers mean extra work for duck owners.

The Post Office opened to the public at 6:30 am, so there I was to pick up my ducklings. It's part of the routine that you open the box at the post office to check the viability of your critters. Chicks are usually stressed and panting, so I had brought electrolyte solution to give to them. I was expecting some very anemic, exhausted babies. I opened the box, which was madly cheeping and shaking, and out popped the ducklings, evidently tired of their box. There were only nine of them, but it seemed as if the post office was over-run by my "raft" of lively , vigorous ducklings as they popped out of the box with agility, escaping all over the Post Office floor. This is an elegant old Victorian Post Office, so you'd have to picture the effect. Luckily our area has a numerous amount of elderly women who are early risers and stop for their mail first thing in the morning. They were charmed by the ducklings...luckily also they were amazingly agile elders who rounded up the strays in no time flat. Just their usual morning duck run...the things I must miss because I'm not usually an early riser.

I popped the duckings into their bathroom bathtub brooder,which had a heat lamp (an extra $100 to the electric bill). I had thought I would have to introduce the ducklings to food, like chicks, but they were born hungry. As soon as I introduced food they were on it. And on it, and on it...they doubled their size every day for weeks. And, like little babies, they cried for more food and water 3 times a night. Now you realize why I hadn't posted; new mother syndrome, a.k.a. sleep deprivation.

I would love to tell you that we get along "swimmingly", but there was the unfortunate meal worm incident. You may perhaps recall that I was raising meal worms to supplement their diet. At 3 weeks old they were such great big downy babies that I thought it was time to introduce their meal worm treat. I had put half of the 5000 meal worms in the fridge and saved half to breed more meal worms. I pulled out the chilled semi-hibernating meal worms from the fridge and sprinkled about a hundred of them over the ducklings. The result was far from my expectations. The ducklings immediately began shrieking (I think they said "snake!") and formed a duck huddle as far away from the meal worms as they could get...trying to form One Big Duck. I have to say that the did a fairly impressive imitation. And every time an itsy bitsy meal worm (their natural food) raised it's head or uncurled itself as it warmed up the ducklings went into new paroxysms of shrieking and huddled farther away into One Big Afraid Duck. What a bunch of girls.

And they stayed afraid until I removed every blessed last meal worm. Ever since, to the ducklings I've been The Lady Who Throws Snakes and when I walk into the room they make One Big Afraid Duck. This doesn't endear them to a woman who gets up 3 times a night to feed and water them, swims them twice a day, cleans up endless piles of duck poo and schedules her day around duck needs. They're a month old now, and it's getting a little better in our relationship since I've learned that they'll eat fresh micro-greens out of my hand. Still, I don't believe that I'll offer them meal worms again. I have emotional scars.

Drowning Sucks

First, the youtube video

And now, the rest of it. As the USA debt stands now, well, I'm not a pencil pusher. But plenty of other people (in high school we called then GWM, "Good With Math") have pushed their pencils. The inevitable conclusion they arrive at is that within five years the USA cannot service it's existing debt . Let me repeat this; cannot even pay the interest rate on it's debt in five years. It's called the Greenspan-Guidotti rule,which is basic math speak for the same issue we all would face if we had too much credit card debt; eventually we can't pay the minimum, let alone the balance, and we default.

So, I said to DH Matt what would that look like in this country? We have State financial problems in California, and already we are seeing closures of State financed programs. The schools and libraries are in serious trouble. What if there were no Federal funds? Our minds boggeled just thinking about this. Hospitals rely on Federal funding. The government would still honor medicare, medicaid and social security, but it would freeze hikes just when inflation runs rampant.The poor and the elderly will suffer. There will be no wildfire funds...colleges will possibly close. My imagination stops there, because with both the State and the Federal governments broke, life as we know it is, at the very least, disorganized.

Party Talk

I really have foot-in-mouth-disease sometimes, especially after two glasses of wine (red) at parties. I was recently listening to a woman who had received chickens and a chicken coop for her 50th birthday (romantic, she said !!!) describe their demise by a bear while she and her husband were out of town. Their sad death was reported to her by their neighbor. As if in an out-of-body experience I said to her, "Ooh, did she describe the bear as 'eating them like popcorn!?' That's what I always hear people say when they talk about the bears getting into chicken coops." The woman was rather confused, but said that ,no, she hadn't heard any references to popcorn. Duh, why do I take that blond chick anywhere? She says the most astounding things.Perhaps I won't let her drink, next time.

THANKSGIVING

I harvested Merida carrots today (Territorial Seed) , yum! Sooo crisp and sweet. I also picked some Sage and Tarragon and harvested a head of cabbage for the Thanksgiving table. Tonight for dinner (Tuesday) I used the last of the fresh tomatoes (well, not absolutely the last...the last 2 cherry tomatoes I picked today,then jammed into my jacket packet...then sat on them on the way home) with garden-grown tomatillos and the last of the peppers to make an incredible chicken chili.

I planted American Ginseng ( Panax quinquefolius ) and Rhodiola Rosea (from Horizon Herbs) in among the trees today. They're both endangered species of medicinal herbs. I'll have to remember to give them a water in the summer if they come up this spring .California's not their usual territory . I'm crossing my fingers, it would be great to give these endangered species another foothold. I'm studying up on Goldenseal now...another endangered herb that I'd prefer to see preserved by many, many people. I happen to have the loamy woods soil that these herbs prefer, it's just that our summers are darn dry.

Ginseng is, of course the panax, or " panacia"
cure for all diseases. and if you think Chinese Panax is preferable...well, they'd rather import ours. American Ginseng
rocks, which is why it's now an endangered species. It is, of course, the root which is medicinal. Rhodiola Rosea is a universal adaptogen...use it and grow strong in all ways (eyebrow wag).

Mortgage Coming

So, our entire plan...the basic premise...was to build a small house and hold no mortgage. This, after holding two mortgages at once while we paid for our land. That was stressful.



I see a mortgage coming, though. It's that awful cost overrun from the Hebel block walls. And a few price increases we absorbed in building materials. We could get away with a tiny mortgage, but I think we'll do a little larger one and put in hydro power to ensure a solid power supply in the winter, a second greenhouse (and, darn it, fix the first one), and some led lights for the greenhouse for plant starts. I'll blog on those led lights soon, you bet. The balance I want to put into gold, yes, even at $1200/ounce. I have a feeling it'll be a bargain. An old geezer once said to me (and he was, too, a dirty old man who liked to schmooze and pinch the 20-something girl l I was then) that when gold is rising that there's a lot of risk..."danger is in the air, beware". I believed him; he had such a look of sad old memories on his face when he said that. DH Matt agreed, we should cover our "bases".
How about you? Have you purchase gold or silver yet?

You Have To See This

This is a graphic chart of unemployment in the United States. Click on the link, it's amazing.

Update on the meal worms. They have arrived. I did decide to bed them down in the laundry room; DH Matt's back has miraculously improved and he is not inclined to sleep in the den. He appreciates that meal worms are very quiet. He wouldn't even know that they are here if I hadn't told him. No, he doesn't need to see them, thanks. Also, no interest in a recipe I found for meal worm spaghetti.

I reeled off the names of a dozen women we know who have invited critters into their house; all of the women are aged 40-something. Most of them are rescuing dogs...this subject came up because one of our friends moved out of his house and into a rental in town when his wife took on 3 more rescued dogs. That brought their total to 6, all big dogs, in a small house. This was, as the saying goes, a "deal-breaker" for him.

I pointed out to DH Matt that this is biology at work. The women we know who are moving animals into the house all had children in their thirties . If they had followed the old biological pattern they would have had children by age 20 , and their children would have had children by age 20. So, no grandchildren....collect critters. DH Matt said he can deal with ducklings and meal worms. But, I'd better not rescue cats and dogs (said the man who rescued 13 cats and moved them into our first house...achoo! We have 3 left, all outside cats but not by their choice).

Meal Time!

Well! Doesn't this look nummy? Meal worms!This is my latest experiment, about which DH Matt is less than enthusiastic. Believe it or not, people have eaten these.

Hot Mealworm Appetizers

Ingredients:
5 ml (1 tsp.) cayenne
2.5 ml (1/2 tsp.) black pepper
85 ml (1/3 cup) mealworm larvae, slightly thawed
30 ml (2 Tbsp) butter or margarine

Place all ingredients together into a sauce pan. Sauté, stirring constantly, until the mealworms are golden brown. Drain and serve. Or, these may be added to a hot bridge mix available in many grocery stores. Or, one may add them to 'Party Mix' made from cold cereal squares, pretzels and nuts. The combination made at home to which one could add the mealworms for extra nutrition, fiber, and interesting texture is as follows: Melt 1/4 cup margarine in roasting pan in preheated 250°F oven. Stir in 5 tsp. Worcestershire sauce, l-l/4 tsp. seasoned salt, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder. Gradually add: cereals (2-2/3 cup corn squares, 2-2/3 cup rice squares, 2-2/3 cup wheat squares); I cup nuts and I cup pretzels. Stir to coat evenly. Bake I hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on absorbent paper to cool. Store in airtight container. Makes 10 cups.
(Courtesy of the Food Insects Newsletter Editor and taste-tested by undergraduate and graduate students at Montana State University and various dinner guests at the Dunkel/Diggs home (thanks for the invite, Proff...I, um,already ate) : found at
http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/mealworms.htm)

Seriously, I would have to weigh half of my current body mass via starvation and have tried dirt first before I would eat meal worms. But, ducks love them. And little ducklings need to be introduced to healthy food early before they develop an unhealthy love for Frito-Lays. So, I have tubs prepared (so hard, throw corn meal in a plastic shoebox) to host the 5,000 meal worms which will be arriving shortly. DH Matt has now, suddenly, acquired a sore back which will necessitate his sleeping in his den at the other end of the house about the time the meal worms arrive to take up residency in the Master Bathroom. I should warn him not to do his usual leftovers search in the fridge...half the meal worms will reside there to be duck meal while only half will be breeding parents. He'll get used to them...I just can't imagine a parental moment when he'll be saying, "Oh, aren't they cute?" I do expect to see him sneak a Frito-Lay to the ducklings.

Kids Don't Listen?

Today I learned the most horrible, shocking news: my kid (DS, 15) actually doesn't listen to me. I don't mean when he has ipod glued to his head... he's so used to having earbuds in that he leaves them in when we've forbidden music during homework. Not having them inserted feels strange and unnatural to him, and I confess that I have difficulty recognizing him without them.

No, I mean the worst kind of "doesn't listen": he doesn't listen when I ,and, apparently, his other two parental units, Dad and Mid-Evil-Step-Dad (he truly tries to be evil, but it just isn't in his nature) are imparting parental advice and governance. He has a vague idea of the topic...and after that he just tunes out.

DS Matt (a.k.a. Mid-Evil- Step-Dad) is amused that I even imagined that DS listened to lectures. Understand, people pay me a lot of money per an hour for the kind of advice I'm dispensing to The Kid. These people hang on my every word; they laugh, they cry...they schedule appointments six months in advance. So, I'm amazed when I realize that The Kid doesn't listen.

Background story: DS is flunking Chemistry at the community college. He's 15, so his admittance there is shaky anyway, he cannot afford to fail. And, he has worked on the wrong Chemistry homework, due today. Would I drive him back to the college in an hour? Of course, but as every parent knows the price of admission to this party is the non-stop dispensation of advice each way.

Which advice he cannot recap to Mid-Evil Step-Dad upon arrival home. Hello? DS Matt said that I should have charged him for the ride. I think that I should have charged him for the advice. Then at least one of us would have something out of the experience. A kid should listen to his Momster.

[Update 1/13/09...kid mercifully passed Chemistry with a "C". Mom was waking up in the middle of the night with the Van Halen song "The Cradle Will Rock" ringing in my mind..."have you seen Juniors grades?!"]

The Business to Be In!

Have you noticed how much business the farm supply/garden businesses are doing? Peaceful Valley Farm Supply says that their sales are up 20% this year. Amusingly enough, I see their same customers when I dash up the road to "Hydro-gro"...ahem, I go there because they have the best propagation materials, not because they are a "grow shop". For those who are wrinkling their brow in puzzlement and need to buy a vowel, that is code for "growing-medical-marijuana". And wow, do the supply shops ever rake in money! Nothing like a cash crop to make people open their wallets. My moth drops open when I witness the cash bundles that the customers drop there. This really makes me want to own a garden supply shop. I would do it too, except that the poltiticos are swaying in the wind regarding medical marijuana. Fed or not?
Legal, or not? Recreational use legal (and tax to the max) or not? I have a simple policy when it comes to investing money...stay far, far away from politicians with empty pockets. And these days every politician seems to have pockets to let.

More Politics (Comic Relief)

This, from Stansbury and Associates:

Today's comic relief brought to you by U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner via this quote from the Wall Street Journal:

"I believe deeply that it's very important for the U.S. and the economic health of the U.S. that we maintain a strong dollar," he said at a roundtable discussion with Japanese reporters.

"We bear special responsibility for trying to make sure that we are implementing policy in the U.S. that will sustain confidence not just among American investors and... savers but investors around the world" that the U.S. will fix its budgetary problems as its economy improves.

Great job so far, Tim... Your comments really instilled confidence in the American people. The dollar touched a 15-month low and gold went as high as $1,119.10 an ounce today (up 26% this year).

Hoo, "Franz", you really crack me up.

You'd trust this face, right?
Memo to self " Buy more gold".

Experimental winter crops

It's difficult to tell in this picture, but those white lumpy shapes are hoop houses for my winter garden. How well they'll work as our real winter weather with snow and winds sets it...no one knows. But if it fails, that's okay...I'll have more information with which to make intelligent decisions for next year. I can already tell that I've made mistakes. I'm okay with the cabbage and corn salad, the carrots and the parsnips. Instead of broccoli and peas I should have just concentrated on spinach.
Because it's shorter and has a direct cycle...edible leaves instead of "fruit" as the product. Under straw in this photo, and there is a lot you can't see in the back, are plots of fava beans, onions and garlic.

Now I need to be clever enough to both mark the plots and to carry a notebook out there and diagram all of the plantings. Because as we all know too well, markers can and do fade. I don't want to be the proud propagator of "mystery garlic" in a few years. I already have "good drying beans".

Ducks ordered

Ducks ordered, two male and six female. Yes, I know, these are not the previously discussed ducks; these are Khaki Campbell ducks from Nature's Hatchery. I have realized that I have more time now than I will have all year...and more space. For the eight weeks that it will take to raise the ducklings until they are feathered in enough to live in an outside shelter we will still be living in a larger rental house. Where I have an extra bathroom. When we move these ducks will move into the blue "parts truck" (DH Matt didn't mind, anything goes as long as I don't ask him to move that truck)
which will be surrounded by electric fencing.

Nature's Hatchery raises K.C. ducks all year round, so I can actually "brood" them in a bathtub. I'm looking forward to this...a new adventure. Both the ducklings (awww, cute!) and the fencing are new learning curves. The fencing is Perma-Net from Premier1, which with accessories ran about $200.
The charging/power system I chose is the Patriot PS15, for another $200. I have some doubts about the sealed battery pack lifespan, but the ducks won't survive our wilderness for long without some heavy protection. In spring we'll build them a more permanent house.

I have an intuition that electric fencing will figure prominently in our future. I recently put some aged chicken manure in the greenhouse; the greenhouse was ransacked several times over as the various local bears examined (meaning tore apart, strewing my greenhouse floor with manure) the plastic bags. And everything else...my garden fence has several bear sized holes now. I can just imagine what the bears will do to our fruit trees and berry bushes in the spring...and I would love to grow some corn this next summer. Electric fencing; it's the future.

These are "egg ducks", not "meat ducks" (unless a bear gets hold of them), Khaki Campbell ducks produce more eggs per year than most chicken breeds. I do still want Brown Chinese Geese...but I don't want to brood goslings in a bathtub. A wise woman knows her limitations. And values her sleep.

Halloween, End of October

The experimental Winter Garden is in. All covered up. I have 60' of Fava Beans planted, with staggered harvest dates. I know, not so much for the Overgardener, but I'm fairly indifferent to Fava Beans. I have 30 Broccoli plants going...how they will overwinter I have no idea, although they are under row covers. This is experimental. I planted eight types of garlic, only 120' there. Some onions...in both gardens. Cabbage, winter lettuce, carrots, chard and corn salad round out the winter greens menu. Now I have nothing to do during November except garden clean up, and occassional watering. December will bring a new experiment...a surprise.

Ta Da!

The roof is on! Now we can run around in the rain and celebrate!

Confidentially, we already had what might be the biggest rain storm of the season. Without a roof. This house was a swamp. The walls (luckily concrete) steamed every time the sun hit them. We wouldn't have had this issue if the block had gone up as easily as we were promised. Our labor costs and time for the walls were 3 times our estimate.

So, the final vote on AAC, Aerated Autoclaved Concrete is in....thumbs down. It's been more time (extra month) and about $20K extra over stick built. The support was non-existent. We will not build with this product again. We would not recommend this product, Hebel Block, to be used in California.The entire experience was a horror show (suitable for All Hallow's Eve) the guys would rather have done without. None of them wants to touch this product again. Nyet. Never.

Okay, It's Not Pretty

This is the view from the back of the house...which was, if you've read earlier posts, intended originally to be my husband's garage...his "shop". Above, you see his "parts truck". Notice that it is up on blocks. I don't see this truck moving anywhere in the future, do you? This might always aggravate me. Unless...Luckily for us all, I'm a visionary. I envision this truck as my new "duck coop". I imagine the little quackers will be very happy in there. As far as I know, DH Matt has no plans for the upholstery. Just as well, don't you think?

Frantic Work

So, work has been frantic. The work on the house has been frantic. And, the garden work has been...frantically busy (really, one can't be frantic in a garden). This four-season gardening is new to me. And, it's a lot of work. The few Winter crops I have chosen to grow are all experimental. I have, under row covers, corn salad ( winter-hardy type of lettuce), turnips, chard, bok choy, cabbage, and broccoli. I have starts of peas (again, experimental) , some of which I'll plant in the garden under row covers and some of which I'll grow in the greenhouse.

Speaking of the greenhouse, it didn't fare too well in our first storm of the season...which was a whopper of a gale, often gusting to 60MPH. The toll: three broken windows and a blown off roof panel. So my greenhouse is not workable this Winter, as DH Matt is still working on the house build and has no time for the greenhouse.

I've been planting garlic and onions...lots of both. Today I hauled hay bales in my Subaru (not sometime I'd recommend unless you're fond of spitting out straw) to the garden and mulched. Hours of mulching later, I had my potatoes and fava beans nicely nested into straw, as well as the garlic covered to eight inches. I also laid sections of newspaper over the paths and mulched them with straw. Anything to avoid hours of spring weeding.

My experiment with "root cellar" storage of turnips, rutabega, and daikon radish has left something to be desired. Perhaps...yes, a root cellar. Lacking one, I put my bushel baskets in the garage.
Our Northern California winters are different from the East Coast where I grew up. There, at the end of September it is decidely cold. Pumpkin harvests are accompanied by warm cider, a definite neccessity. Here, although it will during the winter snow quite a bit and get down to 17 degrees above zero, it does this ever so gradually. We have many 75 degree weather days even at this time of year. My root vegetables are becoming soft, and sprouting more greenery. As far as they are concerned it is spring, time to take off and go to seed. (sigh)

Take Your Banker to Lunch Day

This is a friendly reminder that tomorrow, October 13, is Take Your Banker to Lunch Day. As you may recall, this is a gentle transition for the Bankers as they ease into the post-Columbus Day long holiday while nursing a hangover. It is , discreetly, the anniversary of another hangover, the takeover of bankrupt Lehman Brothers by Nomura Holdings, Inc. A foretelling of the future, perhaps, as power and money transition from West to East. And for you, it is your chance to put a personal face on the public whom they lunch off of every other day.

Please bear with me as I cover some of the finer points of Bank Lunch etiquette. It goes without saying that you have booked the most expensive and exclusive restaurant in town for this lunch. Plan to pay for this with the new savings your neo frugal lifestyle has engendered. You know, of course, that your bankster, ah, Banker, will order the most expensive food and wine on the menu...perhaps you weren't aware that the finer pontificates of Banker etiquette would have you cutting their meat and spoon feeding it to them.

Croon soothing noises, avoiding sudden movements as Bankers are very skittish and prone to cut and run. Some table hopping on their part is expected; they may very well be lunching with three parties at once. This is well within the boundaries of their normal behavior, and nothing to be excited about. When you leave the waitperson a tip, it's important to tip 20% as the Banker will scoop up 4% for themselves. This is personal habit, as they are so used to receiving Federal (ah, yours, originally) Money at 0% interest and then loaning it back to the Feds at 4% interest. Those jokers, aren't they cute?

Above all, please don't take a page from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) , as he asked Richard Fuld: "Your company is now bankrupt, our economy is in crisis, but you get to keep $480 million (£276 million). I have a very basic question for you, is this fair?" Your Banker will be completely bewildered by this question. Fair is so relative.

Final Harvest

Time for the final harvest of tomatoes and potatoes. Time for the final harvest of squash. Time for the final harvest of naive investors.

My potatoes are a bit small, but since the rains and frost are coming this week I'll harvest them anyway. It's the third crop this summer, so it's no big deal. I'm planning to grow some tubs of potatoes in the greenhouse this winter also. I still have a lot of green tomatoes, but as they'll split in the rain they have to come out and be stored. Hopefully they'll mature. I'm not harvesting the investors, simply observing that procedure. Pity they're mostly so young. Hopefully this will be a maturing experience. They really should learn to read a price/earnings ratio.

I went wild over the potato selection at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply; ah, the Over-Gardener strikes again. I'm still trying out potato varieties and growing seasons for this new climate and altitude. I have a new greenhouse and I'm not afraid to use it. I purchased 10 varieties of potato. Ahem, yes, overkill, I agree. I get carried away with enthusiasm. Much like those naive investors. At least I'm aware that the winter climate is not conducive to growth without some protection. Those investors really might want to use a thermometer and check the numbers.

One crop that we are letting mature, which we think will do well over the winter, is a modest amount of gold mining stock we still hold. In fact, we think that the worse the winter is the better it will perform. Gold mining stock is a funny thing; people think of it as a "safe" storage of money, when it really isn't. Think of it as a business which prospects for gold, digs it a lot, then sells off its' assets. The gold is only held for a very brief period of time, all else is potential and speculation. Most of the time you'd be better off speculating on which potatoes will grow well in your climate. The thing about the mining stock is that when the weather is very, very bad the stock can take off in a very steep ascent. I think that we're in for a rough winter.

Time For a Rant

Excuse me, rant ahead; proceed at your own discretion. Awfully wicked non-PC comments, gross links.

Our local paper- no great shakes, it is published six days a week but it doesn't even carry AP news because of the cost- ran a story recently on the swine flu shots available. The story ran something like, "Oh, I'm so Scared of the flu, gather the women and children and run for the hills, Oh Goody, the Government is here to save us, that swine flu shot is Dandy."

Okay so far (yawn) typical local story without much thought or insight.The part that made me see red?

"We know it's safe" (referring to the vaccination), said by Health and Human Resources Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Oh please, no vaccine is "safe". Is this safety factor the reason why Baxter Labs, maker of this vaccine, asked for and received complete waiver of liability? This statement is going to come back and haunt Ms. Sebelius. Her next public quote on this topic will be something like, "Of course, 'safety' is a relative term". Our proud government said something similar in a 1970's Sixty Minutes interview after Guillam-Barr syndrome appeared in some flu shot recipients. Words are cheap. Spread some around. Um, Kathleen, my garden could sure use a load of horse manure.

I have actually thought about writing an Opinion column in that same paper, listing some of the atrocious "adjuvants" in the vaccine such as formaldeyde, thimerosol, and a squalene level which is a million times higher than the same squalene adjuvant which has damaged, maimed, and killed 160,000 veterans of the Gulf War. Yes, the latest research has unearthed some interesting news and government admissions ("Rats! Caught!") about Gulf War Syndrome...don't believe the Wikipedia entry, please do your own search at these links if you need some evidence. The form of the vaccine which does not contain adjuvants, the aerosol mist, contains live flu virus. In my opinion, never a good thing.

So, I had thought about writing that column. I decided not to. Every nation which has introduced swine flu vaccines has had a 38% refusal rate (except China; refusal of government programs there qualifies a person for organ donation). That part of the population is wary, or does the research, easily available on the Internet, about health concerns around this flu. The fact is, this flu so far has been far less of a killer than the regular flu. The people with good instincts and/or intelligence are self-selecting against this vaccine. I like that, actually.

You see, I'm a gardener. Every planting must be thinned so that the strongest survive. Infected and non-producing plants are yanked out matter-of-factly. I select the best seeds to reproduce and do not replant the weak and prone to disease. Call me wicked, I don't mind, but if the careless and fearful people are self-selecting themselves to be culled, that is a choice made of their own free will.
Now if I can only convince my garden to self-select....Kathleen, over here for more of that horse manure.

Waterfowl Instead of Chickens

If you've read earlier posts you know that I have long lusted after the ownership of chickens, both for eggs and for their nitrogen-rich manure. I was torn between choosing Buff Orpingtons or Silver-laced Wyandotte, both good foraging breeds which can withstand a colder climate.

We have some issues with raising chickens in our forest, besides the obvious predator problems. The most serious issue is that our soil does not have earthworms and it would not be a good idea to introduce them into our woodlands, as they would destroy the duff which shelters new tree seedlings. Chickens need a high protein diet if they are laying eggs. As a permaculture site, we do not want to be purchasing chicken food at the feed store. The entire concept is that we feed them from the land and their manure goes back into the soil to make a full circle. As I have counted the calories and dietary requirements for laying chickens, the equation falls short unless we raise earthworms or black soldier flies for them to eat. Growth and production of both worms and flies slows dramatically in the winter, just when we would most need them for our chickens.

The solution came as we were examining chicken structure plans. Our chickens would require an insulated, possibly heated hen house. Heating the hen house on an off-grid site was simply a no-go situation. But geese prefer an uninsulated shelter. They are entirely vegetarian, and depending upon the breed (Chinese) they can lay more eggs than most chicken varieties. The Chinese Goose is also known as a "weeder" goose, because they will happily eat young weeds out of the garden and leave more mature vegetable plants alone. Just don't let them in with the lettuce or peas. The Chinese Goose is also a great watchdog...no intruder or predator will escape their notice or loud comments.

We're planning on ordering six Chinese geese from Metzer Farms for egg production, as well as two mating pairs of Pilgrim Geese (shown above, top). Pilgrim Geese are mild mannered and quiet, not so much egg birds as meat birds. DH Matt and I are uncertain if we'll be able to kill a goose (or be able to eat it afterwards) but we want to try two temperments of geese to see if we prefer one over the other. Chinese Geese can be more tempermental and excitable. We're also going to try ten Golden 300, a duck breed which has been developed at Metzer for maximum egg laying capacity.

Ducks and geese can share the same shelter. Ducks need a little bit of insect protein, but I'm confident that they can forage and find this on their own during the summer. In the winter I'll sprout yellow peas for them, yellow peas because they are higher in lysine than green peas.. Ducks, and especially geese, are far healthier than chickens. Waterfowl don't have the respiratory illnesses common to chickens or require antibiotics for treatment. Duck and goose eggs keep far better than chicken eggs, up to seven days without refrigeration. They have less of a sulphur odor. These geese and ducks are bred to be primarily land birds, and require only a kiddie swimming pool and sprinkler to keep them happy in the summer.

Racing the Winter Storms

Here we have our house-in-progress. You will notice that we are in October and the second story is not yet completed . No second story = no roof.
This is a less than happy situation.

DH Matt and his crew have been out here working away six days a week. The core issue is that, despite all of our years of careful research, we had been unaware that our AAC building blocks were sized for a metric system. No where in the literature did it mention that these are actually Mexican made Hebel block. The sales reps told us that the plant was in Mexico, sure. They omitted to mention metric sizing, during the many, many conversations we had with them. Add to that California seismic requirements for rebar spacing (IN FEET AND INCHES) and we have a recipe for near disaster. Our walls have cost three times as much in labor as we had budgeted. Every piece of block needs to be altered in some way. This is not the easy Tinker-Toy project we had envisioned, planned for, and budgeted for.We had hoped for a paid-for house, but with this setback we will be $30K in debt at the end of the project.

I'm simply grateful that we are building a small house. This problem would be exponentially larger with more square feet involved. The good news is that, despite appearances, the walls will be complete this next week and roof trusses will go in. The roofing, simple galvanized steel (barn vernacular design) will go in the week after, hopefully winning the race against the start of our rainy season by a good week. For those of you unfamiliar with California's Mediterranean climate; we have approximately five months of absolutely dry weather in the summer time. A rain is so unlikely that it makes the front page of the newspaper and goes into the historical record. And then, the rains come. And come...in dryer southern regions rainfall might be only thirteen inches. Here in the mountains we have more than one hundred inches of rain each winter.

Because of the California budget crisis we had layoffs at the City Hall, especially in the building department. So, the plan check department was understaffed and we received our building permit much later in the dry season than was normal. Of course, we all know that there is no "normal" any longer, we are living in unusual times. The unusual has become the norm, if we can wrap our heads around that.

We're not certain that we would ever build with this block again. We might chose to, after experiencing a winter with these well insulated walls. We do notice, though, that the documentation for this block is woefully inadequate. Considering the amount of this block that the manufacturer's and reps sell for commercial and residential building in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico there is no excuse for the lack of a building manual. It's laziness and lack of attention. Which always builds up in a building boom...there's no reason and no time to provide documentation when the product is flying out the door. I hope that now that they have to actually work at sales that the AAC business will remedy the situation with a good manual and better documentation.

Busy Harvest Time

This is one day's harvest from the garden. My nights are full of processing this produce...canning, dehydrating, freezing, or serving it up for dinner. Above, we have purple tomatillos, three baskets of tomatoes and a basket of peppers. What is not shown in this picture is the five bushels of onions that I have recently harvested. This sounds like the basis for...organic salsa!

Mt tomatoes are low-seed paste tomatoes, mostly Amish Paste. For convenience I simply chop them roughly into quarters and put them into my ancient food processor. I process the peppers, onions, and tomatillos the same way, then I cook the whole slurry down fro two days on low heat until it becomes a thick sauce. I pressure can this, and summer is preserved for a cold winter's day.

Fall Planting

Fall is here, it's time to plant Garlic and Onions. This year I'm planting Walla Walla onions, which are better planted in the fall if you want them to reach maximum size and sweetness in July. These onions are large, white, and sweet...you can chop them without crying. Below, we have Chesnok Red garlic, also called Shvelisi after it's originating place in Russian Georgia.It is just the perfect garlic. The cloves are large and easy to peel and the garlic has true garlic depth without getting nasty about it. I'm also planting Elephant Garlic, which isn't a garlic at all but a leek. This doesn't have the true garlic taste, adding it to a dish which requires garlic is a waste of time. But it is exceptionally easy to peel and adds character to dishes which would be overwhelmed by garlic, such as scallops, or a bean cassoulet. The other onion I'm planting this fall is the Egyptian Walking Onion, also known as the Multiplier Onion. This onion is usually used year round for green onions, or shallots, although it can also be let grow into bulbs. The trick is to never, never let it go to seed. Once established this onion will continue to multiply itself in the bed by rooting along the length of the green stems. If you haven't ordered your garlic and onions yet, it's probably too late.
You can still find some at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, although their supply is limited. One Stop Poppy Shoppe still has sets of the Egyptian Walking Onion.

I've been yanking down my pole beans. Then I'll plant fava beans 3" down and thrown some aged chicken manure on top. The chicken manure will water down in the fall rains. The fava beans will pop up in March and be ready to harvest by late spring. After they're harvested it'll be time to plant the same bed again, this time with tomatoes. I had 30 tomato plants this year because it was my year to dry tomatoes. I do that every other year, as dried tomatoes keep for two seasons. This coming summer will be a smaller tomato planting, probably just a dozen for summer use.

I'm trying an experiment with some of my fava beans this year. We have a swampy field where a seasonal stream ends and empties out. By midsummer the field is gorgeous, filled with wild sweet peas. I can appreciate the view, but I did try picking sweet peas this year to see if we were missing anything. They took forever to shell and the result was dry and tasteless, not sweet at all. So this year I'm going to pull up some of the sweet peas (it's a large field, there will still be plenty to look at) and put down some fava beans, about 5 pounds worth. It would be great if they naturalize there...no weeding, no watering. A gardener's dream come true.

Sustainable Vs. Unsustainable Living

I have to say (just to have it on record) that DH Matt and I are not eco-nuts. Which, again for the record, is like "Co-Co for co-nuts" in reverse. Yes, I know that that doesn't make immediate sense, which is why I said it. One statement, "eco-nuts", is a consumerist denial of a genuine movement which mocks "consumerist" values. The other statement is consumerist advertising. Truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

DH Matt and I are logical, reasonable people. Logical, reasonable people look at the "consumerist" culture and realize that it doesn't work. A cycle of continuous unplanned growth is not an economy; it's cancer. It's not logical that a middle class consumer can/does constantly purchase designer label goods (cars, clothes, shoes, accessories, electronics, travel) to, what, aggrandize their ego? Allow them to feel that they've arrived? Nor does it make much more sense, except in the sense that they can actually afford it without credit, for even the wealthy to purchase these same items, again to aggrandize their ego. The non-gap between rich and poor had reached such a crescendo that the rich were going into hock to pay for leather tile on their walls or custom tile patterns so that they could demonstrate their wealth. Since the upper middle class already had all of the previous emblems of wealth. The standard was pushed higher and higher.

Someone has to pay for the lifestyle when the middle class are aping the wealthy. And, again for the record, historically the wealthy who have to demonstrate their wealth don''t remain wealthy. But, for the wealthy, demonstrating their wealth is at least half of the fun. This period in American history distinctly reminds me of the pre-French Revolution era.

"Much like the bourgeoisie, the nobility utilized gardens to display their wealth. The difference, of course, was that the nobility displayed their wealth not in the garden, but through the garden. By building large and interesting gardens on his property nobles were able to gain notoriety. The size and the various elements of the garden, such as aviaries, menageries, and fountains were all components of a garden that could speak of a noble's status."


Every gardener knows that when you reach for fountains and statues then things get expensive, fast. Well, of course I would put all of the excess in recent years into gardener's terms...replace "house" for every garden reference...or better yet, "McMansion" and you have the real state of things (or, pardon my pun, the real estate of things). Where has all of this faux wealth come from? Again, to put it into historical terms we should look this time at "Empire England" in the colonial days. The fashion after the French Revolution was for faux austerity, modeled in women's fashion by Indian cottons printed in new patterns. And tea, coffee, spices and chocolate. Eventually England built up such a trade imbalance that the British Empire collapsed. Sounds uncomfortably close to today, doesn't it? Fact is, all of our "comfort" has come upon the backs of Chinese and Indian laborers who were desperate for jobs. Not so they could purchase garden statues, just so that they could eat. Today these same people aspire to a standard of living that we enjoyed in the 1950's. Some meat on the table each week...a dishwasher...a washer and dryer.... a car per family...and some privacy.

DS Matt and I are "faux impoverished". Sure, small house...limited resources. Big land. All 160 acres of it. This, for the record, is a retirement investment in timber. We're not stupid enough to attempt to establish an estate on middle class currency. We have convinced ourselves that we are "environmental stewards of the land".It's just a pure coincidence that we also have the true wealth currency of the era...privacy...and paid for. So, we have despoiled a previous wilderness. Logged previously, more than once, of course. Surrounded by other timber/ranch parcels, of course. In other words, virgin land is rather a myth.

The point I'm trying to make in all of this is that there is no "righteousness" in choosing sustainability as a lifestyle. We chose it because the alternative is death. We as a culture drown in both debt and excess....and waste. Someone has to be on the next wave to model a lifestyle that consumes as little as is reasonable. That consumes as little as the person in India or China so that they can have their place in the sun. We don't have a "post consumer" ego about that, it's simple logic. Do I really for one minute think that by recycling and purchasing used instead of new that I can "lift up another culture and the guy in India can buy a motorbike? No, that too is bogus reasoning. But I and others like me might mitigate the post-empire collapse this country is about to endure. We're just pioneers, sign posts on the road. What we're doing on our land is actually much easier on a smaller parcel...much easier in communal living, or much easier in a planned suburbia.

Borage in the Garden

Borage is, to me, a garden essential. The flowers are beautiful, especially when grown near comfrey. The flowers are edible...I love serving guests tea made from mint grown in my garden with wonderful blue borage flowers floating in the ice cubes. It's an old country belief that growing borage next to tomatoes makes the tomatoes taste better. I don't know if that is true, everyone tastes foods a little differently....but I do know that borage near tomatoes gives you more tomatoes. And cucumbers, melons, and beans...because bees love borage and it brings them into the garden. I just love the happy feeling of borage in the garden, and then again when the blossoms are used as a bedtime tea. Happy dreams.

Comfrey in the Garden

It's recently been pointed out to me that my garden approach is different from that of many people, and that some of my plants are uncommon to a garden. I think that this is first because the focus of this garden is on sustainability, and second because I consider many garden plants to be a first product, a starting place to process the plant into another useful form. If there is a third reason, it would be that I love to try new things.

One of my favorite plants in the garden is Comfry. In past years that I've grown Comfrey, it has self- seeded throughout my garden. I have never thought that this is a bad thing, comfrey and borage (another vigorous self-seeder) look beautiful together and are medicinally extremely useful. If one patch is good then more are simply bonus. This time, though, I decided to try the varietal Russian Comfrey because it is sterile. A gardener can take root cuttings from the comfrey but the plant will not send seeds out into the garden. Furthermore, since the plant does spread through its' root system I am growing my comfrey in a half wine barrel. I also have true comfrey seeds in case I miss the joyful profusion spreading through my garden.

I consider Comfrey to be an indepensible item in any home medine cabinet. Dried comfrey leaves are crushed into powder and then used in a poultice for any skin irritation..poison oak, an allergic reaction to topical irritants (men who react to spermicide shoul take particulat note of this, it relieves pain and irritation in seconds), and any irritation caused by many garden plants. The comfrey leaves are always wrapped, never put into contact with the skin because of numerous fine hairs on the leaves. The other folk name for comfrey is boneset and comfrey is the first herb I reach for to treat a broken bone or sprained joint, again used as a poultice. Comfrey is rarely taken internally...only in the first three days of a broken bone and then in small amounts; it can be toxic to the liver. Never give comfrey internally to a child or a pregnant woman.

If you're not ordinarily a poultice user then comfrey is a great place to start. An undyed paper towel is slightly saturated with hot water...the comfrey powder is sprinkled on, about a tablespoon. The paper towel is folder over, sprinkled with a bit more hot water, then the poultice is wrapped around the injury and left there for five minutes for skin irritation...wrapped under a bandage and left for sprains or breaks, such as a broken foot bone which would not ordinarily be set. Comfrey poultices can be used on a broken bone to bring the swelling and discomfort down sooner.

Comfrey is also used in the garden as a good source of potassium. I grown comfrey near my potatoes. When the potatoes plants are six inches high I clip comfrey leaves and mulch the potatoes with them. I then cover the potatoes with a thin layer of straw, as the comfrey turns into a green slime that i'd rather not view every day. Extra comfrey would be a terrific addition to the compost pile, although I wouldn't know about that. "Extra" comfrey to me is like "extra" money. It's a nice concept but it's so useful that there's never enough to go around.

Sustainable Gardening

A sustainable garden has to produce an entire cycle, making the loop from fertilizer to plant to production, back to compost while introducing as little outside energy as possible. The same concept applies to sustainable living, although in both cases it is currently impossible to reproduce our current standard of living without introducing outside energy. Even our pioneer ancestors had a lot of help from the Indians and had European imports.

In my garden the two most critical issues are carbon and nitrogen. Currently I'm importing many, many rice straw bales into the garden for the carbon. I'm planning on introducing chickens to the garden (chickens, meet garden) this spring when we have the time to build a chicken coop. This is more challenging than it sounds in bear and snow country; the coop must be built like a fort, an insulated fort. This will give me manure the following spring, two years from now. It will still be raw, not aged manure, so realistically I won't have the manure cycle down for three years. In the meantime, chickens need to be fed, another importation of energy. We have forest with a few sunny cleared patches, little water, no summer rain, and many wild critters to eat corn. We also have gluten allergies, which rules out growing wheat, barley and oats for chicken/human food and the necessary carbon.Entering the picture: millet (pictured above right, proso millet) and buckwheat (pictured above left, mancan buckwheat).
Millet will provide seed heads for both chickens and people to eat, and the stalks should provide the needed carbon. Millet is similar to wheat in it's protein profile, 11%. Perfect for chickens. Millet is also good for the kidneys of the humans who eat it; good clean kidneys keep us energetic and looking youthful. Millet and buckwheat are excellent choices for the small homestead gardener because they don't require a lot of water, tilling, or fertilizer and they are relatively easy to harvest with a hand sickle. You can throw the entire seed head to the chickens or put a sheave into an old pillowcase to thresh it for human porridge. A standard blender will turn buckwheat groats into buckwheat flour for pancakes. We plan to till these into a fenced clearing and use a rain bird on them once a week. Both millet and buckwheat will produce two crops a season even at our altitude. The buckwheat can be re tilled for "green manure" to enrich the soil. Buckwheat is also the only grain which provides the essential amino acid lysine.
I purchased my seeds at Seedland, a site which sells seed for hunters (hunters are terrific at creating wildlife refuges...at least, a refuge before and after hunting season). The shipping cost for 100 pounds of seed added a third of the price, but the seed price was low enough that it was still a good deal. They had mancan buckwheat, which is a bit more productive than common buckwheat, and they also had proso millet rather than the more standard pearl millet. Proso give more distinct grains and is easier to thresh; pearl millet is a bit more productive and is usually thrown straight to the chickens.

European Vegetables

I've had some production issues this year in my garden, nothing major when compared to anyone else's but not what I expected in my garden. Plants usually love to show off for me..."Look Ma, see what I can do!" At 3500' elevation, in a timber forest, I had some new challenges. The core issue is that my seeds are adapted to valley gardening. After all, most people do live and garden in valleys. More importantly, the seed producers are located in valleys with a different climate from my own. By selecting only one variety of each plant and saving the seeds I could have adapted plants in 3 years. That is, after about 3 years of experimenting with the different seed strains. So, 6 years until the garden produces the way I want it to.


I keep a picture on my desk of Bell Rock in Sedona Arizona because of what it represents to me. A female friend and I traveled to Sedona more than a decade ago. We wanted to climb Bell Rock , we were hikers and rock climbers in those B.C. (before child) years. Try as we might, we couldn't even get onto the wide skirt of the rock...every path ended in a drop off or rubble. Yet we could see other people far above us, people who weren't even wearing good rock boots, who were managing to climb the rock. For two days we tried, and for two days we failed. The third day I suggested that we start with a meditation. When we finished opening ourselves to higher energy...we could see stairways in the rock. We easily danced up all the way to the very top where most people never climb, and down again in just two hours, half the normal climbing time. We felt such a feeling of accomplishment. A man stopped us, and asked if we had been the two women he had seen up there. He said that he lived in Sedona, had in fact moved there so that he could hike and climb the rock every day. But he had never seen anyone go where we had gone..he wondered how we had done it. We looked at each other and laughed, then told him that "we took the stairs". And so I keep the picture where I can see it, both to remind myself to ask for help, but also as a reminder to always look for the stairs.

So faced with a six year cycle I "looked for the stairs". I remembered that I had read in "The Four-Season Garden" that the first European settlers had a tough time with their gardens. The light was stronger in the new world and the nights were warmer. They had to adapt their seeds over a decade to the new climate. The same was true for the settlers in Virginia, one of the reasons that Jefferson's work at Monticello developing new plant strains and experimenting with new crops was so important. So it stood to reason that European strains would be adapted to lower light levels and cooler nights. Indeed, my best winter squash this year is the French 'Cinderella" pumpkin. It's a bit amusing, similar to the Jerusalem artichokes that I could only find in the U.K., that the pumpkin had to travel "over the pond" and back again to be locally adapted. Taking this trend a step further, I have purchased European seeds for my next garden. I purchase seeds all year around, because I'm more likely to get the strains that I want to experiment with.

At Cook's Garden I found the seeds I was searching for. They really have a terrific European selection. I purchased Violetta Lunga Precoce , an Italian eggplant....what a great name, huh?
I also bought Teton spinach, tromboncino summer
squash,pictured at the right (with, I guess, a serving suggestion), Blue Solaise Leeks and Filet Triumphe de Farcey bush beans. I also bought Melon Charentais, a french heirloom melon which is not related to the musk melon varieties that we typically grow in the States. I did not by any means purchase all of the European varieties featured at Cook's. For instance, I don't care for arugula. Silly I know, but as I recently found myself wondering why I had planted cabbage when my family would have preferred a double spacing of carrots...well. I'm not planting arugula. Or cabbage again. And the summer squash Ronde de Nice looked appetizing but small. I tried to picture grilling a zucchini shaped like an egg and failed.

Purslane

Purslane is an edible weed. In previous years I've had to yank it out of my garden because the deer love it so much they'd jump my fence and eat the purslane and my roses. I had always wondered what was so appealing about purslane that the deer would brave a large jump over a high fence for this weed but not brave it
on a daily basis for the roses. I had tasted a bit of it because I did know that Europeans ate it. It was okay, tart and crunchy, but nothing special. I threw it away. I was recently searching for garden plants with large amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids and the winner was- Purslane. Here's a Wikipedia entry about purslane:
"Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid in particular^[4]) than any other leafy vegetable plant. Simopoulos states that Purslane has .01 mg/g of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for land based vegetable sources. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid normally found mostly in fish, some algae and flax seeds. ^[5] It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and some vitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the coloration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies."

Wow, who knew? The deer, of course. Purslane can be rather invasive...and it doesn't need much water. Which makes it a perfect container plant. It is absent at my new garden, possibly due to the altitude. I found seeds for it (yes, I laughed at buying them) at Cook's Garden . The seeds are for a "Golden Purslane" which should be quite pretty. If the dark wild kind shows up then I'll interplant them.