Fruits and Nuts

I have a new planter bed, courtesy of a grumpy inspector from the electric company. Well, he decided we needed a barrier on our garage roof deck, and my lovely husband negotiated that barrier to be a new planter box. It's enormous. 18' long, 2.5' wide, 3'(+) deep. We've always talked about a planter box up there - this was merely the motivation we needed to get going.

Currently, the enormous box is sitting empty. We decided to parcel our our resources and build the box to create the mandated barrier but hold off on filling the box with soil until Spring. Looks like that might have been an error. We're contemplating fruits or nuts up there, and looks like many of those should be going in late winter. It's hard to get the right soil components around here in late winter.

This merry adventure has led me to the library archives, searching for information on miniature orchards. Here's what we've got so far:

"Fruit Trees in Small Spaces," Colby Eierman:  Subtitled 'Abundant Harvests from Your Own Backyard.' Interesting general resource. The book covers all aspects of the trees, from selection to pruning, with recipes for the harvest at the end of the book. Beautiful pictures and easy layout designs. Sadly lacking in specific information about hardiness. The biggest problem, however, is that like so many other 'small spaces' books, this author assumes a rather significant amount of space. Space more likely found in the suburbs than in the urban area I'm living in. For me, 'small spaces' are postage stamp yards. It's a step up from container gardening, requiring principles of permanent planting. This book is pretty to flip through but not a good resource for me to make a solid planting plan.

"Fruits and Nuts," Susanna Lyle. Subtitle 'A comprehensive guide to the cultivation, uses, and health benefits of over 300 food producing plants.' This is a heavy duty book. It's very textbook like. It checks in at almost 500 pages, formatted on 8x11inch paper, with small color photos. The index at the front is essential, as it connects the common name of a plant to it's Latin name - the book is organized alphabetically by Latin names. This text lives up to it's 'comprehensive' claim. It is amazingly thorough. However, this isn't a good resource for sifting through the various types of 'food producing plants.' There's simply too much information. I'm seriously considering purchasing it, however. Because once you've picked out a plant, this book has everything you need to know about growing it. And I have a hard time resisting comprehensive reference books.

Still waiting for review includes "Vertical Vegetables and Fruit" - which looks promising for 'small spaces.'

In the meantime, I'm taking a bit of a break to wander through "30 Day Gourmet Big Book of Freezer Cooking." I'm going to be less than stellar in January due to health stuff and I need a freezer stocked with ready to eat meals. Preferably not premade stuff from the store. Often, the premade entrees are stocked full of sodium and my blood pressure doesn't care for high doses of the stuff. Off to meal planning! Who knows? This could revolutionize the ready to go meals in our house.

Homemade Food Gifts

The holiday season is now upon us. Crazy how time flies! Back in the heart of last winter, I had hoped to make enough gardening progress to be able to gift homemade jams/preserves/relishes to the neighbors, friends, and family who stop in this season. Sadly, that didn't work out. I just couldn't get enough out of the garden. I'm working on a plan now to maximize next years growth - and to accept that my family can easily eat through the produce we're growing, with little leftover.

Since I can't raid the food preservation shelf (with one exception, see below), I'm looking towards food gifts I can create. Cookies are traditional, but I'm trying to look at things that are a little different. I stumbled across a book the other day called "The Flying Brownie" by Shirley Fan. It was a staff pick at the local independent bookstore. The book's tagline "100 recipes for homemade treats that pack easily, ship fresh, and taste great." In addition to the recipes themselves, there are tips for packing care packages. The best part is that each recipe includes tips to increase the longevity of the goods and how long you can expect each to last. Really, that last detail is what convinced me to invest in this book. Even though I'm not planning on shipping any of this years gifts, I'm looking forward to trying out these recipes for holiday gifts.

One thing I did get to this year is Rumtopf. It's a berry infused rum liquor. Starting with the early season berries, fruit is layered in a jar and covered with rum (at least 90 proof). Pick fruit in season and use the best fruits. Use a clear glass jar so the fruit layers can be seen. If you have several fruits at the same time, try alternating color for a great look. Keep adding a layer of fruit as each comes in season. Finish when the jar is full, or with sliced apples. Between layering, cap tightly and store in a dark place. Once the final fruit has been added, leave the jar to sit for six weeks. This concoction is ready just in time for Christmas. The fruit gives the rum a very sweet, fruity flavor and thickens it similar to a syrup. The fruit in the jar is edible, but highly alcoholic. The syrup is great over ice cream, pound cake, or just about anything that sounds good to you. Small jars go a long way for gifts. Large jars are good if you're expecting parties (oh! I can use it as a mixer with seltzer for a great drink!) but for individual use large jars are just overwhelming. My rumtopf is on schedule this year. Can't wait to gift those jars!

Going homemade. Looking forward to every minute of it.

Incoming!

I was shopping today for all sorts of random things in one of those membership only clubs. It's the holiday season, so all sorts of unusual things are out on the tables. I wandered around the book tables and mixed into the cookbooks were several interesting titles. Of the few titles that made the cut for this holiday season, three of them were specifically related to traditional food preservation. Several of the books were titles I've considered purchasing in the past.

I started using a traditional water bath canner 15 years ago when I had an unexpectedly large harvest of tomatoes. No one I knew canned food. As a child, I watched my grandmother process homemade grape jelly. I remember it being long, steamy, hot, and (ultimately) tasty. But children were never involved in the process and it wasn't something that my mother's generation took up. I purchased the necessary components, the Ball Blue Book of Food Preservation, and fumbled my way through things. It was the first of many tomato seasons - and the only grape season. I found out the hard way that processing grapes is long, steamy, hot work and for one person working in the kitchen it's not tasty enough to justify the work.

It's startling to me that food preservation has moved into a level of popularity indicated by inclusion at the membership club seasonal table.

It's also incredibly tempting to increase my book collection.

Looks like it's time to make a run to the library again. Book reviews to follow! I'll be taking a look at books specifically related to food preservation. I've been so deep in gardening books for so long I'm looking forward to the change in subject.

Self-Sufficiency and Frugality aren't always what you might expect.

We talk about these things, self-sufficiency and frugality, almost as if they're interchangeable. Somehow, in this shifting landscape, we've taken two distinct concepts and tried to fuse them into uncomfortable synonyms. Today is my stand against such a thing.

I love words. Our new English vocabulary program studies Greek and Latin roots. That's where I learned that I am a philologist. A lover of words. So, let's look at these words for a minute.

Frugality: noun. characterized in the use of resources. Based in frugal: careful about using money or things you need.

Self-sufficiency: noun. the quality or state of being self-sufficient. Based in self-sufficient: able to maintain oneself or itself without outside aid.

I'll be the first to agree that these ideas are companions. Using your resources frugally often leads to self-sufficiency, or self-sufficiency forces frugality of resources, or so the circle goes around. The sad truth is I'm exploring in this journey is that companion ideas are not interchangeable.
For example, our new alt. power. We've just finished installing solar panels. They were expensive. As a matter of fact, the thoughts behind this post were the result of an article talking about "cheap" photo voltaic solar panels now available at Ikea. Our panels were certainly not cheap. Are they of better quality than the Ikea version? No idea. And frankly, there's little point in tracking down that information since my system is already installed and running, while the Ikea panels are available in the UK. Back to the point. We took on the panel project knowing it was going to be expensive. It was not being careful of our monetary resources. It will be a while before we even break even on the financial investment. But the panels go a long way towards sufficiency. It's not off the grid, but part of the grid. Moving us in the right direction.

We see the same issues in our community garden planting boxes. The beds are raised, and we opted for the more durable (i e pricey). The soil compound was also expensive. In terms of time, we're in a location where we are forced to haul water and thus is not frugal in the sense of time. But like the panels, this moves us along in our journey. And in addition to the produce that comes out of the garden we get play time in the sun, hours of bike riding and tree climbing around the garden, a chance to understand where our food is coming from and what kind of work it takes to support, and opportunityto learn what works in this place and what doesn't. It's hard to qualify such things.

So here we are: frugality and self-sufficiency. 

In my head the Lion King soundtrack just kicked in with "Circle of Life."

School at home, our style.

Sure enough. Homeschool. Classes at home. Nontraditional schooling.

Call it what you will (we do!), we're not in a "regular" school. Believe it or not, we like it this way.

A few things to get out of the way first: We don't force our children into this. They know there are other schooling options available and they know we would support them in a different venture. They keep picking this because they like it and it works well for us. I don't homeschool out of obligation or the nature of our school district. I keep choosing this because I like it and it works well for us.

No, it doesn't work all the time. Nothing works all the time. Yes, we actually do like it. It doesn't need fixing. It isn't a hail mary pass. No, we don't have a classroom and desks. Yes, we have books. And we even read them! Silliness aside, homeschooling is a HUGE part of our lives. I spend a ton of time preparing lessons, researching curriculum, driving the kids to extracurricular activities, grading papers, and more.

 This venture also greatly impacts the way we view our interaction with society. No, we didn't just shift into a conversation about socialization. As another homeschool mom likes to say "we socialize puppies, not children."  But homeschooling regularly challenges our traditional interaction with society. How we interact, with whom, under what circumstances become thoughtful, intentional acts. Our setup is easy, especially because of involved, close to home grandparents. Not every family is as blessed as we are. But every homeschool family has to make these choices in interaction.

Homeschooling evolved along with my desire to increase our self-sustenance. They feed each other. These ideas challenge a society that typically runs one way.

I don't think these endeavors make me or anyone else better than someone who's more traditional. The fact is that everyone has their own thing. It just turns out that homeschooling is part of OUR thing.

Going Solar!

Where did so many of our resources go this year?

SOLAR!

Oh, yes. It's worth yelling about.

We've been eyeing solar power for years. Things finally came together for us and we started the project in April. Due to a number of things outside of our control, the system wasn't turned on until the second week of October. It was a slow installation, slower inspections, and weird delays. But finally, we're running.

Over the Summer we greatly impacted our energy consumption. We were helped along by favorably weather, requiring less effort on the a/c. We helped ourselves by line drying a lot of clothes, being very mindful of our thermostat settings, focusing on using areas of the house with natural lighting, and doing our best to turn things off. Aside from the line drying (it takes a lot of time to hang a load of laundry), nothing was particularly taxing. And yet, we saved quite a bit of cash on the bills. I can't wait to see how the solar panels impact the situation next year!

To date, our system has generated 85% of the estimated power output. I'm pretty pleased with this number, as it's been a particularly rainy few weeks.

I could spout a ton of information about solar (now). I've learned a lot. But I'm going to leave this here, because there's not much call for my solar presentation at the moment.

But,

SOLAR!

Wow. A year. Updates to follow - homemade!

Part II. Homemade.

Where does the time go? Going homemade.

About a year ago, I swapped over to homemade clothing detergent. I also started using apple cider vinegar in place of fabric softener. Overall, it's been good. I'm honest with myself. It isn't as reliable a stain remover as Tide (powdered or liquid). I have to be more attentive to stains before it goes into the wash. About two months ago I started adding OxyClean to boost that cleaning power. I'm not sure of it's success. And after one load of color bleeds I'm awfully concerned about using it  - so it only goes in the whites now. I'm very happy with the vinegar, though. It works as well as the fabric softener, it's very cheap, it doesn't contain perfumes, and there's no lingering vinegar smell. This last round of mixing up the detergent I used the food processor to grind the soap. It was fast and far easier than doing it by hand. However, I've discovered that the soap isn't breaking down the right way so I'm going to have to take a  different approach.

Over the summer, I left the dryer off and started using the clothes line. I got down to running the dryer about one load a week. No one tells you how long it takes to hang the laundry, though. Yes, the clothes to have a certain "crunch" to them. I came to find that the towels this way were great - unbelievably absorbent. I'll miss that this winter.

I also played with a lot of different homemade bread recipes. I've found a place on the counter for a bread maker. It suffers from all bread maker problems, creating an awkward shaped loaf. But it was great over the summer. No need to turn on the oven. No babysitting. Just put everything in and let it do everything. Also, it's a much different texture of bread. Still, bread making isn't always convenient or produces the loaf we're looking for. We've actually cut back on our bread intake overall, eating the bread when available and not missing it too much when it's not.

I'm still shifting into more homemade, more consistently. It comes easy, in some ways, because so many of our meals are made from scratch already. So I have to be more aware of opportunities to make this part of our daily lives.

Oh, and on one random note (semi-related): We used bubble wrap last year as window insulation and it worked great. Large bubbles work best. We ordered a $30 roll online and didn't use it all. Plus, most of what we did use last year we were able to save for reuse! I was astonished at how effective it was. I need to go back through the house this year and reapply all the wrap. I'm a bit behind, but we had a very warm day last week and took down a lot of the wrapping to open the windows. For large windows, old windows, or simply drafty windows, order some bubble wrap and build your insulation levels. It really does work.

Winter is sneaking up on us. The leaves are all falling. The temperatures are teasing us with frost. It was a good Summer. A quiet Winter is up next.

Wow. A year. Updates to follow - garden!

Part I. Garden.

Whew. Where does the time go?

School. Garden. Playing chauffeur. Sleeping. Sickness. Cooking. Preserving. Living.

The time all goes somewhere.

The garden is dormant again. Already! The year flew by. We didn't have the record breaking heat/drought challenge this year. Halfway through the season we added a hose reel that significantly improved the water situation. We're near the end of installing a micro-irrigation water system, paid for by a grant we won back in April. [Thanks, St. Louis Earth Day!] There's a nutshell.

More expansively:

The weather was exceedingly kind in many ways. There were few blistering days and due to regular rain (in spite of an area drought in August) we were able to water from the hose a lot less. However, we struggled with too much rain in the Spring and a slow warm up, stunting the peppers and encouraging wilt growth on the tomatoes. Radishes were hit and miss. The watermelon grew and grew but never really got anywhere. Tomatoes took over the whole place this year, with squash lost to disease and a lot of seed sprout failure. I tried a DYI "tape strip" for small seeds and the seeds just never did anything. It was a lengthy involved process that I will not be repeating. The broccoli went from unripe to bolting overnight, while the cauliflower never seemed to ripen at all. The kale, on the other hand, was an overwhelming success. Many families were fed from the four kale plants before cabbage beetles set in and took over.

I don't feel like we did as much food preservation this year as usual, but the shelf in the basement is pleasantly full. I stuck with much favored foods, skipping some of the more exotic recipes. We're stocked with canned peaches, applesauce, and marinara for winter. Definitely my top three items. We weren't able to build a storage room in the basement (root cellar) as I had hoped. Our attentions went elsewhere and I'm still hoping we'll get a chance next summer. I also brushed the dust off the food dehydrator and made apple rings and banana chips. More of those are in the works. Sadly, little of the food on our preservation shelf came out of my own garden. I just wasn't intense enough in our 64 sq ft of space to feed us adequately and preserve for winter. Plus, I don't have peaches or bananas growing around here.

We did eat some great stuff, though. Peas right out of the pod, standing next to the trellis. Next year, more peas are going in the ground. Beans straight off the plant. Radishes and lettuces trimmed and then tossed with dressing for dinner. Tomatoes were stewed into sauce, marinated with mozzarella and olive oil, eaten by the handful at snack time. It was a good year.

Notes for next year: Don't let Winter fly by - Spring is coming and it's never too early to write up the seed order. Plant more peas. Put the peppers far away from the tomatoes. Sigh dramatically and pull the yellow cherry tomatoes, they taste good but it's impossible to eat them all and they take up too much space. I'm sure there's more. There always is. But it's OK. We keep going on.

The micro-irrigation system will be in play for next year. I'm not sure how it will play into everything. we'll see. I'm excited to get the project done, though, and turn it all on. And clear all the bits out of the garage.

So, where does the time go? Tomatoes and peppers, peas and beans. That's where.