so much garden goodness

i'm so far behind on sharing all that we've been eating and preserving from the garden this year. i guess it's a good thing to be living out there in the real world and not being quite so concerned about virtual life online. it was a good year for elderflowers. we've got a lot of them on our property here and there and we took full advantage. i made 15 bottles of cordial and we dipped them in pancakes and made elderflower fritters for dessert.

their delicate fragrant flavor just sings of scandinavian summer to me. they're around for about 3 weeks, so we do our best to take it all in during that time. i even put some down in some vodka and made elderflower vodka to go in cocktails. i should have done two bottles as that one's almost gone. we mixed the elderflower vodka with a bit of elderflower cordial, topped it off with fizzy water (we recently bought a soda stream and absolutely LOVE it) and an elderflower garnish. summer in a glass.

we've had cool temperatures and lots of rain. it means the garden has been a bit slow to get started, but my herb beds, close to the house, are going like gangbusters. i was looking for a way to use a bunch of them at once and decided to make some herb salt. i gathered some of everything there was, including elderflowers, cleaned it carefully and threw it all in the food processor with some sea salt and whizzed it up.

here we have sage, bronze fennel, oregano, thyme, and elderflower. i also had a few stinging nettles, some parsley, lovage and a few sprigs of mint for freshness. i'm going to make another batch or two including garlic now that we've harvested that as well.

you just lay the salt/herb mixture out on a tray to dry - i put it out in the terrace so it could get some of the rather scarce sunshine and stirred it every time i walked by for 2-3 days and then put it in a jar. we've already seasoned steaks with it and thrown some in pasta. so satisfying that it came from my own garden instead of some snotty kitchen boutique.

it has been a banner year for strawberries - i've picked and picked and picked and now they've finally tapered off. we ate as many as we wanted - strawberries and cream every evening for dessert for an intense couple of weeks. i made jam and i used my wonderful steamer to make the best juice. i managed to bottle up 15 bottles of that as well - some in combination with rhubarb and ginger, some with just strawberries and a couple of vanilla pods.

we've been enjoying it in a gin cocktail - strawberry cordial, some good gin and again a top off with fizzy water, garnish with a strawberry and again, summer in a glass.

we've got 3 bee families now, but only one is doing well. we harvested about 25 kilos in the first round, so we've got 50 jars of honey. at the rate we use it, that won't last long, so we're happy that our two weaker families seem to be coming around. one of them killed their queen and made themselves a new one and that seems to have really helped. if the queen is weak, so is the family, as we're learning.

we planted a veritable shitload of potatoes this year. our sandy soil is good potato soil. husband had ordered 20 kilos of seed potatoes in the spring, not really realizing how many that would be (it's 15 rows). we've already started digging up lovely little tender new potatoes and enjoying them with whatever we're eating, nearly every evening. it somehow doesn't seem bad with those carbs when they come from your own garden.

how's your gardening going this year?

practicing everyday sustainability

we garden to live more sustainably

i have "liked" several facebook groups which concern themselves with sustainable living - homesteading/survivalism, frugally sustainable and several that focus on foraging (which i also see as an aspect of sustainable living): wild food girl, edible wild plants and first ways. it was through one or the other of these groups that i found myself reading lists of ten things not to spend money on. i totally agree that less consumption is a big part of sustainable living, but some of the items on these lists were real doozies:

~ newspaper subscriptions. and the reason provided wasn't because "i get my news online" or from t.v. or the radio. no, it was because the blogger didn't have to time to go through them for the coupons anyway.

~ obstetrics - home birth all the way.

~ birth control (ostensibly by the homebirthing, homeschooling blogger who had four children and was expecting number 5).

~ then there was the helpful suggestion that it's more economical to buy blocks of cheese and grate them yourself, rather than buying pre-grated cheese.

~ i'm a little shocked at how often some aspect of making your own food appears on the lists i read: bread, tortillas, yogurt. making these things yourself just seems like ordinary common sense.

~ don't buy sodas, alcohol or coffee. sodas, i can appreciate, we buy very little soda, but alcohol and coffee? that's just crazy talk.

~ don't buy extended warranties on computer equipment. (really? wtf? as one who spilled a small glass of water into her macbook pro, i can highly recommend buying the extended warranty when you make the investment in such a computer. if you don't and something happens, you will lose that computer. i make the mistakes so you don't have to.)

but probably the most disturbing item i read:

~ "Toilet paper. I keep some on hand for guests, but our family generally uses the family cloth." (emphasis mine. note the use of THE SINGULAR.) [we'll just pause here for a moment while you visualize this.]

many of the lists i read (there were links, so one just kept leading to another) seemed to be aimed at cheapness frugality rather than sustainable living, as there were few mentions of fresh produce, gardening and forget about any mentions of organic. many of them were just about saving money. which i can also appreciate, but i don't think that focusing only on that aspect necessarily makes one particularly sustainable. especially not when a number of the sites advocated stocking up in bulk at sales in the big box stores and filling up your freezer - that's definitely not how i want to live and feed my family. (and don't even get me started on the evils of wal-mart.)

i find it especially worrying that this narrow view as to what sustainability is will be passed on to the next generation by these people, as most of them are also homeschooling their children. what kind of a world will we live in?

to top it all off, i just heard on the radio a story about some movement in the US (one million mothers) where a bunch of christian mothers are banding together to try to keep marvel comics from having one of their superheroes (batman, methinks) come out of the closet. i could imagine many of the bloggers whose lists i read this morning are part of that movement.

but, as always, there was a silver lining - the whole thing did make me think about what my list of things not to spend money on would be:

1. grocery store sushi - it disappoints every time (and has nothing to do with sustainability, i realize, i just think it's good advice.)
2. those herb-pots they have the grocery store - the ones still "growing" in a little pot of dirt, that last about 5 minutes because they were forced to grow too fast in a greenhouse and can't survive outside of that controlled environment. plant your own in a pot on your kitchen windowsill - while you can't use it for making your dinner immediately this evening, you'll be surprised how soon you will be able to use it. and you'll have the additional satisfaction of having grown it yourself. (the exception to this is a nice rosemary plant - i think they do better because they are more tree-like.)
3. cheap shoes/boots - buy good quality, they'll last you much longer and while they may cost more initially, they'll save you money in the long run. and buying one pair of shoes instead of eight is much more sustainable.
4. commercial chicken feed - buy oats, wheat, barley, perhaps some corn (i like to get the kind that's been crushed into flakes, to make it easier for the chickens) and rye, mix it yourself in equal portions of each, then add a handful of shells as scratch. this mix, plus free ranging all the bugs and greenery they can eat, has given us healthy, happy chickens who lay plenty of eggs.
5. perfume-filled cleaning products, soaps, shampoos, lotions - studies show that there is a big increase in allergies due to all kinds of additives and perfumes in our products. buy perfume-free cleaning products. or better yet, make your own and scent them with essential oils. (i've only just begun doing this, so i've not got expert advice to share on it yet, but some of the good stuff i've found in the facebook groups has been about making your own cleaning products.)
6. margarine - if it's worth you baking from scratch, it's worth using real butter.
7. specials which force you to buy more than you need - if i'm having guests and need three packages of meat, then i go for the special, but if it's just a normal night, i don't let the grocery store decide for me that i should have way more meat than i actually need.  

what about you guys? how do you practice everyday sustainability?

Some inspiration

Today I found Peak moment television, here one can find all kinds of interviews on various subjects. Some of the titles are:

• Managing the 21st Century's sustainability crises
• Your money, your life, your happiness
• Four acres and independence
• Your personal baker
• And several interviews on community-gardens and gardening.

With a click here you can start browsing around, when you don't have the time right this minute you can always find the link at our linkpage under eye-opener.

Enjoy yourself.

Elizabeth

Farm Bags Year Two

Last week I announced the end of year two's farm bags.  This year was quite a ride.  The weather was unusual, to say the least.  We were very cool until July, then began searing much warmer than normal temperatures and zero rain, it was capped off by a return to very cool temperatures just as the tomatoes should be ripening (we had our first light frost September 4!).  Despite the uncooperative weather we had a very successful season.  This is especially illustrated to me by the number of home gardeners who I talk to, that had little to no success with anything this year. 

We had changed our planting volume this year to specifically accommodate the number of families that we had taken on.  Even with this pre-planning, each week when I would announce a new farm bag was ready (half of the group would pick up on say a Wednesday and the other half on a Friday), I would begin to have some anxiety.  Would I have enough so everyone could have the same volumes?  Is everyone perceiving value from their bags?  By the time delivery would take place, each bag seemed to have grown exponentially from what I had envisioned on it's announcement.  We had eight successful farm bags when I closed last week.  We do have all of our fall planting, which has been loving the cool weather, so I informed the families that later in the fall we may have one or two more bags available for those interested in greens and sweet potatoes. 

What lessons from year two?  I need to focus on our own consumption and preservation.  We did fairly well, but my main concern was meeting the commitment I made to the produce families.  So when the season was less than ideal, I wanted to make sure they were accommodated.  I don't think I would change the planting strategy.  We had plenty of plants for the families.  The season dictated the yields and I feel fortunate we got the volume we did!  We had green beans coming out of our ears, which I feel quite proud of, since so many said they had none.  We have a lot of work ahead.  We won't begin fall prep/tear down until later this year because we are still nursing things along.  We began a gorgeous Indian Summer yesterday and it's set to last for another six days.  We hope to ripen enough tomatoes to get some canning done.  Whatever doesn't ripen, we are going to process all of the green tomatoes. 

Will we continue on?  Absolutely.  As with anything, we need to find the balance to handle it all.  But it is the direction we are going and sometimes you need to juggle while creating a new life path and maintaining the old.  I was so inspired by The Chef's Garden from Julie's post yesterday.  I wonder if we will get there someday?

The above shot is our lazy housewife green beans drying.  These beans make amazing dried soup beans and I can't wait to shell them at the end of the season.  They will be a warm creamy winter treat!

Adventures in Wine Making

 About ten days ago we began a crash course in wine making.  When we planted our berry patch last year, we included elderberries with the intent of doing elderberry wine.  Suddenly, we realized that the elderberries were ready and if we didn’t act fast, the birds would wreak havoc.  We ran down to our local old time feed shop/brew supply and got a quick crash course on starting the fermentation process. 

 We plowed through the information, bought the different components that we needed and began our primary fermentation.  Last night, we went to strain the fruit, and transfer the already wine like liquid to its secondary fermenting container.  Since we began with only a small amount, approximately 1 gallon, we decided to pour through a funnel, rather than siphon the wine-in-process, once we had strained out the poached fruits.  Everything was going swimmingly, until the darned bowl just would not cooperate, and about half of our first batch ended up down the drain.  So now instead of 5 bottles worth of fermenting juice, we have only two and a half.  Ah well, yet another lesson learned…siphon even small amounts to avoid catastrophe frustration. 

 Never fear, we have been collecting loads of the still ripening fruit and will be putting down our second and much larger batch this weekend.  On the bright side, B tasted the batch and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor and complexity already developing! 

What have we learned so far??  When dealing with fruits like rhubarb and berries freeze them first, then as they thaw they are already squishier and the juice flows out more freely.  Be sure to kill off the natural pectin’s that are there (they may or may not be of benefit in the finished product and you don’t want to risk the outcome of all your hard work in the end) and then add back a wine grade pectin.  Make sure everything is spotlessly clean using a special detergent.  There are many kinds of yeast, each one works best at a different temperature and will help to provide different alcohol contents, so educate yourself.   Finally, do not let small setbacks frustrate you; it is all a grand, and hopefully tasty, chemistry experiment.  What is next on taps?  More wine adventures, and mead...oh I wish I had some of Julie's honey!

pressing cider

this weekend, we sent the child up the old apple tree in our back yard to get those hard-to-reach apples. it's a very old tree and so the apples weren't as plentiful as we would have liked, but there were enough for a first run of our cider press.

eventually husband went up the tree too and they managed to shake down all of the apples. in all, there were 50-60 some. they are a bit on the small side, but delicious, crisp and juicy.

we'll prune back the tree significantly this autumn and hope it encourages better apple growth next year. it's quite a charming little old tree, so we're definitely not cutting it down all together, as it gives atmosphere to the back yard.

the next step was to send them through the chopper. we learned that the chopper has an awful lot of vibration, so it's a good thing husband sunk those legs of the bench 50cm or more into the ground.

we also realized that the little grinder's engine isn't going to be up to the task of many more apples than we processed. each apple we fed in slowed it down significantly and we had to pause in between to let it get up to speed. it also threw apple chunks around quite a bit (hence the towel over the top of it).

this is a shot of the clean plastic ikea container where most of the chopped apples end up, below the chopper. that worked pretty well.

the 50-odd apples resulted in this much chopped. we didn't weigh it, but i suppose it was about 5 kilos.

we readied the press. the oak grate in the bottom took quite some rinsing before it stopped giving off an oak-color to the water. we wanted our cider to get its color from the apples, not from the oak! after many rinses, also with boiling water from the kettle, the water ran pretty clear from the oak.

the next step was to make the "cheese." we put in the frame and then laid in a polyester netting cloth (we're going to experiment with different kinds of cloth, but tried this to start with, as it's what many of the sources we've read recommend). the cloth was 150cm wide by about 150cm in length.

next, we filled it with our chopped apples. the entire bucket of chopped apples fit in one cheese, tho' the press can take more than one at at time.

next step is to fold the cloth over the chopped apples. we folded each side over and then the ends, to carefully enclose all of the apples.

it's a great activity for kids. sabin was so happy to help with it. she actually did a lot of the work.

once it was folded carefully, husband lifted out the frame (you can see the little nail "handle" there underneath his right hand. the cheese stood well on its own.

next, we placed an oak grate on top of the cheese and then, since we only had one, three large pieces of 4x4 and then the jack. husband has made a little frame for the jack to stand in, so it doesn't shift out of place during use.

then we began pressing (or rather, we used child labor to do the the pressing), the cider running out into a large bowl underneath the sink's drain. we pressed until sabin couldn't pull the jack handle down again, even by hanging her whole weight on it.

our 5 kilos of apples resulted in approximately one whole liter of cider (these are 750ml bottles). it's sweet and delicious and we're hoarding it a bit until we get our hands on some of the apples promised by a few neighbors.

we fed the apple remains to the chickens, but with the next batch, i'm going to make cider vinegar. apparently it's pretty easy - you just take these apple remains, put them in a big crock with some water and let them ferment for a month or so, until the vinegar is the strength you want. sounds pretty easy to me.  i just washed up the cloth and it's ready for the next go.

we learned several things:

~ it takes a LOT of apples to make not very much cider.
~ the engine of our chopper isn't powerful enough.
~ the oak is a bit difficult, since it wants to contribute its color to the batch (how do they keep chardonnay golden in oak barrels?)
~ i thought husband's cider press was a bit over-dimensioned, but it needs that strength to withstand the pressure from the jack and stay together. it did this with flying colors.
~ the repurposed sink makes a great receptacle for the juice.

we've managed to pick up 4 beautiful old-fashioned glass wine balloons here and there over the past week or so and we're ready to fill them and make hard cider, as soon as we get some more apples.

if you have any questions about any of this, just ask in the comments!

~ julochka

waiting for the apples

over the past week or so, husband has been hard at work building an apple cider press.  he searched online, watched a couple of youtube videos and then went to work. we've got grand plans for hard cider and regular cider production and tho' we only just planted our apple orchard this year (and 4 of the 10 trees we ordered died), husband thinks it's never too early to get started.

we had an old sink from the old house and he cleaned it up and repurposed it for the press. what's great is you can take advantage of the drain and drain the cider into a clean bucket as it's pressed. the construction is very sturdy, as you can see, but the jack that places the pressure on the apples (which are wrapped in lengths of clean, unbleached fabric), will put a lot of pressure on the frame.

husband loves french screws (that's his name for them - in my opinion, they look like bolts), so he used plenty of those. we don't have apples that are ready yet, so i can't show you the press in use, but as soon as we do (we've arranged to get a bunch from a neighbor since our baby trees aren't producing yet), i'll be back with more pictures and more about how we're going about this.

last friday, husband had a little encounter with this big, mean table saw, but it didn't stop him for long and he got to work making a little machine that will chop up the apples so that we can get more cider out of them and i won't have to stand with a big dangerous knife and chop them up, likely necessitating another trip to the emergency room.

husband loves to work with wood, so he created this little chopper, repurposing an old bench grinder for the bit that does the chopping.  you can catch a little glimpse of his bandaged left thumb here.

he placed screws at regular intervals on the wooden drum inside and so they chop up the apples as you feed them through.

we're not sure if this little engine is actually going to prove too wussy in actual practice - we've fed a handful of apples through and it was up to the task, but we don't really know it will handle a major apple chopping job.

husband built a bench out of an old pallet to fix it to, as it's got quite a lot of vibration.

the chopped apples come out below and fall into these plastic ikea tubs. the chopped apples will be enclosed in big squares of fabric and then pressed. ultimately, we'll put the cider into those wine balloons so it can ferment into hard cider. but more about that process when we actually get to it in a few weeks.  this project has actually made me excited that autumn is in the air!

i just wanted to share this project as it goes along, mostly because of how creatively husband has repurposed items  - the sink, the car jack (not pictured) that will provide the pressure, the pallet, the old grinder. now that's what i call living sustainably!  you never know what you might be able to build with things you already have around the house! it's easier on the environment and much more economical. even if it is, at times, hard on your thumb.

eating less meat

 

i was feeling pretty bleak about the state of the world yesterday and what we can do as individuals to affect change. whenever i feel that way, i watch some TED talks and it usually makes me feel better. and while i realize that in posting this video here, i'm preaching to the converted, i wanted to share it anyway. i think the biggest surprise in it for me was that we should only be eating half a pound (250grams) of meat per week (if we're not going wholly vegetarian) and instead, many of us eat that per day!  i know that at our house we've cut back significantly...for example, making a roast chicken stretch over 3-4 meals - from the initial roast to boiling the carcass for broth to use in soups or risottos to using the leftovers in salads and sandwiches and perhaps also a risotto. but i'll also admit we're not there yet. we're definitely going to make this half pound/250 grams of meat a week a goal around here.

gardening is an exercise in hope

the big overview

husband and i were laughing yesterday as we planted a few more things in the vegetable garden and looked back a year and thought about the few seeds we threw at the ground when we first moved here. we hastily prepared the soil, planted before it was warm enough and most of our peas and beans were surely eaten by birds before they ever came up. this year, it's a different story. tho' the garden isn't there yet, we're moving in the right direction.

the main garden - 12m of healthy strawberries on the left.

the strawberries are going to be a bumper crop - you can see the healthy robust 12-meter row of strawberries on the left and the smaller new ones in the foreground. next to those are rows of potatoes and various kinds of fancy beans. the green weedy-looking bits in the middle are rows of little oak trees and little christmas trees that were left behind by the previous owners and which we haven't had the heart to dig up, except to begin an oak allé across our field and down to the lake. in the top photo (and below), there's a raised bed filled with various brassicas (my new favorite word) - cauliflower, broccoli, white and red cabbage. per amy's advice, i've planted marigolds here and there, since we don't want to use pesticides (or herbicides for that matter).

brassica bed (and tiger the cat)

we've got artichokes down at the far end and a row of asparagus next to the rhubarb (visible on the left of the top shot). asparagus is a vegetable that requires patience. you can't actually begin to harvest it before the third year (talk about slow food!). i even planted some asparagus seeds, completely not following the directions, and every single one of them came up, so much more asparagus will be going in as soon as it has roots enough to set it out. the asparagus should love our sandy soil. we prepared the area last autumn, digging in plenty of good horse manure, and the asparagus seems pleased so far. and it's a good exercise in patience, to wait three years to reap the benefits.

we've planted peas, carrots, four kinds of onions, leeks, tuscan kale, curly kale (which the bunnies and chickens that i hope will come this summer will love next winter), garlic, zucchini, pumpkins, butternut squash, corn, parsnips, beets and several kinds of salad. they keep promising us rain and we got a bit today and hope we get more in the coming days. then we hope the sun returns.

gardening is a kind of exercise in hope. you hope conditions will be right, you hope for sunshine and rain in the right quantities, you hope those tiny seeds will grow into big, beautiful edible veggies, you hope no bugs or slugs will eat it all up before you can. hope and a lot of hard work. but already i think it will be worth it.

Alternative solutions to buying: quick eye mask

First, a quick apology for my absence for the last little while. There was a trip to the UK (by ferry, another blog post) and then my mother came to visit for a month. I've caught up on the posts and it's been so nice to see everyone's preparations for spring and, well, to see spring!

Thought that I would do a little post about a quick item I made last night. So, last night, I decided to make an eye-mask for my son. Although we live at the bottom of Denmark, we are still north (about 54 degrees north) and at this time of year the sun sets sometime after 9.00 and it isn't really dark until nearly 10. Trying to convince a 9 year old who hates sleeping anyway that he should go to sleep when it is light out is difficult. So, I had been thinking for a while about how we needed to buy black out blinds for his room. And then it occurred to me, that there was a cheaper (yay!) and more sustainable option, a homemade eye mask.

I began by searching for some crafty inspiration and patterns. As you may know from other posts, I have, shall we say, issues, with patience. I can be patient with many people and some things, but not with sewing or crafts. So, I ignored all the suggestions for "fabric covered elastics fancy dancy have to use a sewing machine to make" eye masks and simply made one with found items at home. (The photos are from today though).

Goofy modeling of eyemask

The fabric: an old flannel pillowcase that was starting to thin and was in the 'to be repurposed' box. The advantage of this fabric was that  it was soft and already doubled up. It needed to be doubled up to be dark enough.

Not everyone can pull this look off.

The elastic: the strap of an old bra that was in the 'things I should throw away but might come in useful' bag. Advantage: elastic and heck, who doesn't want a bra strap around their head?

What I did: simply cut out a rectangle of fabric from the pillowcase making sure to do so from an edge so that two sides would already be sewn up. Cut off the bra strap. Sew the bra strap onto the rectangle fabric. Try on. Cut a triangle out where the nose is (on the open side of fabric). Do a running stich along the open side and bottom. Ta da. In about 10 minutes, there was a eye mask. It's not the most beautiful thing in the world but it used materials I already had, didn't involve measuring, took no time at all, and best of all the little boy was asleep before 9.00pm!

For me the lesson is not about crafts but about how to think alternatively and sustainably about solving problems. The conventional solution is to buy black out curtains. The alternative is to make an eye mask out of materials at home. I like the creativity involved in solving problems the alternative way.


Jude

garden dreams

it's been a bit grey and dismal for the past week, tho' that big ball of fire in the sky showed itself yesterday. it didn't seem that fun because the temperature was still hovering around freezing. still, there are many signs of spring - the chatter of the birds, snowdrops dotting the lawn, the buds beginning to look plump and hopeful on the trees.

there have been enough warm days that the ground is beginning to thaw and we've even had our tiller out and begun to do a bit of preparation for planting, tho' it's still far too cold to begin. as you can tell, these photos are NOT of our garden here in denmark. they're shots i took last fall of a most lovely place  called sonia's garden - tucked away down a long winding road in tagatay, philippines. it's the sort of garden i dream of as our greyish brown world only begins to come to life.

little winding paths in a lush, green environment. of course ours will never be the tropical lushness of this garden since our season is too short and our climate all wrong for that. but the notion of little hideaways in the garden - secret rooms in which to listen to the birds and snooze with a good book -  that's appealing. 

when i think about sustainable living, my thoughts often turn to gardening - vegetable gardening - as there's something about sustainability that is inextricably linked to self-sufficiency.  but isn't it also important to sustain one's psyche, to imagine a garden that's a relaxing place of refuge after a long, hard day? to have a place to relax and commune with nature, maybe to eat outdoors. i'm trying to push myself to think of sustainability in broader terms. in terms of sustaining my soul and my family while sustaining the earth. and i think a garden like sonia's garden, which is also a restaurant serving only locally-grown, freshly-made food, is a good thing to dream of...

* * *

some more practical sustainable gardening inspiration at eco etsy