how do you support your DIY lifestyle?

or, "You're drinking what they're [not] selling"               (with apologies to CAKE....)

In an attempt not to talk about the weather, I thought I'd look back at the off-season to see if we've made good use of this downtime. 

There were some minor house projects:

Discovering you can utilize the space in your basement staircase is a treat--a lot of houses in our neighborhood do this, and we finally took the plunge  Now we're looking at our walls with a whole new eye.  Also--having most of your cookbooks in the actual kitchen?  Kind of convenient!

Also baking, as always. A flickr friend sent me a really good sourdough recipe, which has turned into a weekly habit.  It's not so much that the recipe is unusual; it just works, and fits my routine well.  Two major points there.  Sometimes you wonder how many DIY habits you can squeeze in your routine--and I think the key is that type of fit.  Another friend gave me a kombucha SCOBY, which led me to discover that--I don't really like kombucha, ha!  The culture was successful and not very difficult, we just didn't drink it regularly enough to warrant the counter space and time. 

Another HUGE addition to our routine (albeit starting last summer) is homebrewing.  One reason for this successful hobby is that it's NOT MINE.  I jump in as needed for various stages, but mostly get out of the way (and happily drink the results!).  While rather a time-consuming habit, it does, like most of it's fermentation siblings, involve a lot of inactive time.  And oh the by-products!

After composting and feeding chickens with the spent grain, I finally started snagging it for baking.  Crackers are SO easy and good, and after experimenting with adapting my own bread recipes, I located a recipe online that gave me the results I wanted.  (Spent grains are super sticky and can really change the texture, so my attempts to just replace soakers from whole grain recipes were not as successful).  It also makes the BEST burger/brat buns.

And the routine has just integrated itself into our life.  Yes, there are bottles to wash, but in a house full of food preparation adding a few more dishes doesn't seem problematic.  Discovering your neighbor has a stash of vintage pop bottles also helps!  I feel good keeping these babies out of the recycling bin!

 

We used up much of our last frozen berries to make the one above, a Raspberry Amber Ale.  It seemed like a good use of fruit, heh.  And summer fruit is right around the corner, right?  RIGHT?

Ah, spring, and an actual follow-up

a perfect way to start the morning....also, I have suspicions there's a toad sleeping right under my coffee cup.

I am trying to remember to look back at my pictures and notes from 2011, because comparing this spring to last is a bit disappointing. You know it's going slow when the NWS has an exciting announcement that we finally had a day with temperatures above average.  But all in all it feels more...normal, and if we don't jump straight into summer I think we'll actually enjoy a real spring.

The hoop house is a huge help with impatience (I'm sure I've said this before).  Even though I'm not as far along as I thought I'd be by now, I can at least plant peas, when outside many of my beds are still frozen.  I can pretty much see the chives growing at this stage--and a green onion that I (improperly) harvested last week grew a new 2-inch shoot in a matter of days.  Spring is so miraculous.

Salads are back on the menu, and we've been harvesting spinach regularly, if not in mass quantities.

Speaking of spinach, I'm really happy with how my experimental grow-boxes are working out.  I started leaving them in the hoop full time a couple of weeks ago (with row cover on a couple of ridiculously chilly nights earlier this week).  The baby spinach is a perfect bridge between my overwintered plants and the new seedlings.  The lettuce is not quite as vigorous, but is so pretty.  I'm thinking of gifting it (or starting another) for my neighbor/friend.

They definitely have served my goals of maximizing growing space and germinating when the hoop conditions were not ideal.  And I could totally see these as hot sellers at an early farmer's market, or a great kids project for a mother's day gift. 

I remember last spring, when our magnolia bloomed early, that it was not really an entire month ahead, it was just that two weeks early, combined with the late spring of the previous year, made it seem extraordinary.  And so this year the pendulum swings back.

On the first day of spring, a whole flock of robins showed up in the backyard, just to cheer me up.

If I hear one more person say (at the grocery store, at the bank teller) how it was EIGHTY degrees last year, as if that is the way it is supposed to be, I may have to throttle them, or at least gently remind them of our loss of fruit crops, and of drought.  But I don't, as I too am wishing for some warmer days--though really, a rogue 55 degrees for a few hours would be fine.  Above freezing for two days in a row?  Okay I'll take that.

Last year's heat wave was freaky, and I had a growing sense of dread as it continued day after day.  But then again, it's really hard not to enjoy sunshine and coatless temperatures.  This cold streak is a little harder to bear, but it helps to commiserate with internet friends who are even colder, or who have a foot of snow! It's also nice to have the perspective from looking at my notes from year to year.

I knew last March that having the first year of winter gardening in the hoop house occur in such a non-winter would make it a little harder to apply the lessons I learned.  I started a ton of flats (mostly alliums) with the thought that I could move them outside by now, but that's just not the case.  My early greens are hardened off, but I even pulled them inside since our lows are below 10 degrees this week.  (It would also probably help if my cold frame wasn't frozen to the ground--I normally move it close to the house and use it to extend my light space on sunny days, and this year I can't even get the lid open.)

Oh well, I scrounged up extra lights from the basement, and have doubled my space inside, and will just try and hold on for another week or two! 

And thank goodness the sun is out, there's always a heat wave in the hoop.  I will head up the hill and spend some quality time soaking in some vitamin D in my wee Florida simulator.

Wonderfully wet

As I write this, a sandhill crane is honking somewhere overhead, and there is a big patch of visible grass on my sunny hill.  Winter is definitely retreating.  She is taking her sweet time, with lots of snow and below-normal temperatures, (and some showy hoarfrost, just to remind us that we do in fact, like winter around here) but she is no match for the lengthening days.

 

But oh, what a thankfully soggy mud season we are entering!  It literally did not sink in until recently just how much our drought of last summer started in January.  Last year was a non-winter, not just in freaky temperatures, but in snow.  This winter, happily we are almost 20 inches over our average snowfall (twice the amount we received last season!), with another 7 inches or so of rain. 

So I am grateful for mud season this March, and equally grateful to have the hoop house, where I can get my gardening season started despite the slower start to spring.

DIY grow boxes

Since I didn't maximize my fall planting in the hoop this year, I wanted to get a jump in the spring.  I'm pretty pleased with how these are turning out, so thought I'd share.

The path in my hoop house is a little wide, which was intentional both for access to the back of beds, and because I knew I'd use the space for spring propagation (And, I want to fit a lawn chair in there!).  Still, there are times of the year when I wish for a little more growing space. In addition, I have a hard time germinating cool crops like spinach and lettuce in September, which is when you need to plant for overwintering--in our area the hoop house is pushing 100 degrees that time of year, even with the ends off and the sides rolled up.   So, I had this idea to make movable grow-boxes.  They can be set in a cooler spot for fall crops, and in the late winter, started indoors.

While  you can probably make this out of pine or any scrap (untreated) wood,  I turned to my favorite cheap building material:  cedar dog-eared fence boards (see also my compost bins).  For one six foot board you can make exactly one box with no waste, that happens to fit nicely in a standard size flat.

For these, I cut three 19 inch lengths, and divided the remainder in half (about 7 1/2 inches).  Construction was very simple, just a box, but I do recommend pre-drilling if you are using screws, to avoid splits.

 For the handles I used a doorknob drill bit.  And I paired up the dog-ears to make matching ends.  There are a few holes drilled for drainage as well (the first batch I drilled in the bottom, the second pair I tried the sides, we'll see which works the best).

My only minor complaint so far is that the handle height makes them a little bit tall for putting under lights, my spinach is stretched a bit.  Still, the plan is to get them outside as soon as possible after germinating--these should go out later this week, once they have their first set of true leaves.

Alternatively, you could size these up to fit a window box liner, and you could also get fancy and make the ends tapered a bit.  I've seen thinner wood used to make standard-size reusable flats for starting plants.  I think they would make a great kids project (after the prototype, the second pair took me less than an hour start to finish).  They could also be sweet for pre-planted salad boxes to sell at a spring farmer's market, or to start forced bulbs in. 

first, I learned to cook

I feel like I'm petering out here at blogging, and kind of can see the end of the habit approaching (if it already hasn't!).

But there's a few things percolating that I'd like to get out of my head first, if you don't mind.

If you're like me, your internet and reading habits lead you to foodie news stuff.  Our local paper had an article about the eat local challenge (which I totally sign up for at our co-op purely for the coupons!)  And of course we're getting inundated with Prop 37 info.  I have fairly strong formed opnions about GMO crops, and HFCS, and Big AG, but at the end of the day, I keep thinking:

None of this matters, if people don't learn to cook. 

If you cook from scratch, or even mostly from scratch, you eliminate a huge amount of the garbage that goes into our food without even trying.

If you don't eat carrots, or know how to cook kale, it really doesn't matter how they were grown, or which season they are available locally.   If you join a CSA and don't know what to do with half your box, it's a waste of money.

The source, or provenance, or organic cleanliness of your food, doesn't matter until people start cooking.  And trust me, for some of those people, the familiarity of handling fresh veggies (and even frozen, or partially prepared) will lead to caring more about where their food comes from.  They'll notice the difference, grow a tomato plant or a pot of herbs, be attracted to the table at the farmers market, and start seeking out things that look and taste better.  For the rest?  Still doesn't matter.  Cheap Aldi vegetables from wherever, and even CAFO meat that wasn't processed into oblivious patties mixed with corn and soy, is STILL BETTER. Actual whole foods from Walmart are better than processed foods from Whole Foods. 

I sometimes get turned off by the elitism of the food movement.  And I'm someone who is totally participating in it!

I think we have to remember how we got started, how we transitioned from eating lipton noodles out of our college apartments, and discovered one day how to make mom's casserole recipe using cream of mushroom soup.  The stuff that comes later?  Making a roux (almost as easy as opening that can!), that didn't happen overnight.  Remember that a lot of meals involve tired, overextended people (I'm including myself here) who don't have a lot of money, and just need something quick and nourishing for dinner. Those meals don't have to come out of a box.

This summer I've been hanging out at Flick more (I'm breadninja, by the way).  A local friend started this group called "Garden Grub".  The idea is to incorporate your garden produce into meals, and share a picture.  There are some folks that do it religiously every day, and some who pop in and out.  No rules.  But it's SO encouraging, especially in a time of year when you're busy and tired of cooking/preserving.  You think you're sick of tomatoes, then you see somebody's simple pasta dinner, and it gives you an idea.  Some days it's just a salad that goes with a take-out dinner, or a few fresh veggies added to a frozen pizza.  Some nights it's more than that, a restaurant-quality meal.  And both options are totally fine, these are real meals, made by people who (mostly) have a habit of cooking every night.  Yes, we're crazy gardeners too, but we also have jobs/kids/hobbies, and the rest of our lives. 

I'm glad people are working on the big issues--there's definitely no reason not to approach complicated problems from all sides.  But I think for me, I want to work on the other end, the part where we encourage people just getting started.  I want to find ways to talk about food that doesn't make people roll their eyes or count themselves out ("I could never make that, I can't afford to eat that").  Because all the good stuff?  The nutritional value, the quality family time, the environmental benefits, those will come later, without even trying.  If you learn to cook.

fall wall update

I realized the other day I haven't really done any progress reports on the wall-building project.  I think the drought and usual summer busy-ness contributed.  Anway.

Despite the being the worst possible year for growing grass, we managed to have some success in the lawn area.  Enough that we are hopeful that next spring (with a bit of reseeding as necessary) will find us with a fairly established established weedy but grassy area.

In the meantime, we are just getting used to living in a very different backyard space, and continuing the project as time and finances permit.  We added a fire pit mid-summer once the grass was walkable, and this fall have started on the upper wall as well.  We are currently waiting on a stone order, and may be delayed until spring depending on weather.

For now the unfinished bits are being climbed upon by agile dogs, and fertilized by chickens (who were fenced out for much of the summer, and are very happy to be back on their turf).  We are enjoying the changing light and foliage:  and looking forward (eventually) to drifting snow.

We are leaning towards prairie-type plantings for the main hilly section, with (possibly) a bee hive or two.  Why not?