March Challange Report -2nd

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So the answer to am I going to go fix my mistake of not getting my last food buying is no, In the past if farm work, or weather meant that the you didn’t get to town, then they would not have been able to run to the store later in the middle of winter, so sadly, neither will I.

Doomer is joining in again this year, Check out her page and read about her first day and  her own personal rules for it.

Breakfast-French Cast Iron Baked No Kneed Bread 2 slices toasted, with 2 dippy pullet eggs, dried dill on top, fried in duck fat

Lunch-Homemade corn chili * See Recipe below with fresh sweet baking powder Biscuits

Supper- Baked Chicken legs in a spicy plum sauce,  homemade noodles with butter/galic/Chopped fresh onion greens.

Extras-Bread and Butter Pickles, Pickled Beets, Pickled Pumpkin, Coffee, Herb Tea, Water

Made today-Egg Noodles, Baking Powder Biscuits.

Sweet Mild Corn Chili Recipe

  • 1 pd of Ground lamb or any other ground red meat
  • 1 pint of home canned corn-Garden 2011
  • 1 quart of home canned tomato’s, onion, celery mix-Garden 2011
  • 1 pint of home canned Red Pepper Pasta Sauce -Garden 2011
  • 1 Pint of home canned pinto beans-Drained and rinsed
  • 2 tbsp of chili powder

Super easy to make, brown your meat, add the rest and heat though, serve and enjoy! – That’s what I call fast food!

Now on to the gardens, and as we were making chili, and one of the main things that makes a great chili, really good tomato’s..

Tomato’s, O my have you gotten some of the new catalogs, there are dozens upwards of hundreds now to pick from for the home gardener.. I tend to grow three main kinds in my own gardens, Cherry – for fresh eating and drying, Big beef stake type, -fresh eating, friend green tomato’s, green tomato jams, mock rasberry jams, Green Tomato stew and relish recipes. Roma or paste style -for canning and pasta making, limited drying.

On average for the two of us, we tend to plant about forty or so tomato plants, three to five cherry, a dozen of the big beef stack style and the rest into the paste tomato’s.

I have now for a number of years mulched my tomato plants, I start them off till at least four inches, then harden them off by the time they are six inches, for compost in the tomato area, I perfer to use a mix of year old sheep manure (about three inches or so in the spring mixed it) and a inch or two of mixed poultry manure (spread in the fall and left to settle and be mixed in during the spring when I do the rest), I tend to do a cool rabbit manure tea feed at least once in the late summer/early fall.

Once the soil has been feed, the plants go in, and the thick 6 inches layers of straw bedding goes down, I leave a small ring around the plants that do require weekly or bi-weekly weeding till they really get going, by the time they are a foot high, I need to get the cages around them, if you are using cages that have feet on them, put them at the same time as you plant out your six inch plants into the soil, but as most of mine don’t have feet anymore, this is no longer a issue.

My tomato plants are given dry land spacing, with means they get a min of 3 square feet per plant, and in the past couple years 4 sqaure feet of space, and boy do they need it, they have grown into a tomato jungle even with that spacing, pruning is required, pinch off the sucker branches.

I do water bath some basic tomato’s, with the use proper use of lemon juice, some of my tomato products are turning into sauces like BBQ etc  that have a high enough sugar/salt/vinager combo that they are also water bathed canned or they are pickled in the form of salsa with which has acid base allowing you to water bath can.. I would say that about 60 to 70% are done this way, the other 30 percent that are canned are pressure canned as a straight diced tomato or tomato/onion mix.

What is your favorite way to use them? Do you tend to go basic? Do you peel the skins? or do you use a machine that takes the seeds and skins off?

Posted in March Challange | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Friday Food Storage -Feb $10 a week Food Challange overview

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the month is over and the march challange is on already, where has the time flown.

In regards to the last week of the Feb $10 a week challange, I didn’t get to spend my 10 dollars on the last week, so I have no photos to give, or update on that. I ended up at a seminar’s and J at the workshop and then the week just got away from us..

Things I learned on this challange, the biggest one is that we can very successfully eat well on only 10 dollars a week budget in regards to fresh food coming into the house. The only fresh things we got are all the basic’s and the storage from the farm, garden, cellar and freezers fill in the rest with no real issues or even a dent seen yet in the storage despite having eaten out of it mainly for the past winter months.

In regards to food storage itself, its been a typical week, eggs continue to increase daily in amounts as more pullet hens start laying, the same amount of milk that I have been getting, I could increase it but don’t really need to, a small amount of fresh greens in the house, as well as some fresh herbs, green onions, chives and of course sprouts.

 

 

Posted in Food Storage | 3 Comments

March Challange Report-1st

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Just as March came in a like a Lion with a snow storm and new lambing in the barn, due to the pressure change, they just love to have little ones in the worst weather possable, thankfully it was a older ewe and she had them safe and sound in their bedding area in the big barn.

So here is my Opps, as you know, we retired the truck and are down to the van for the moment, I was off the farm all day at my eco-farm, and hubby was gone all day on sunday at his writers workshop, and he has been at work this week during the day and somehow, its March 1st, and I never did get my last Feb $10 dollar a week challange shopping done, which means that I am entering into this with a really bare bones in regards to fresh food in the house (and that’s a understatement!)

I am heavily debating on if I am going to cut myself some slack and go use my allowed funds or if I am going to slap myself for just not finding the time and now I am just going to have to pay the price..

Which brings me to the garden part of this post: I am going to talk about one of my favorite winter greens, both for in the house growing(works well in a cool house) winter Sowning in pots and for winter cold frames.

Mache or Corn Salad or Lambs lettuce.. Different names-Same Plant!

A little history: Corn salad was originally foraged by European peasants It has also been used as food in Britain for many centuries and appears in John Gerard’s Herbal of 1597 but only became commercially available there in the 1980s. It was grown commercially in London from the late 18th/early 19th century and appeared on markets as a winter vegetable.

Mache so far has done well overwintered in my cold frames and even better in a cold frame in a cold hoops house. This green is very soft for use, its never going to give you a nice crunch in a salad but it has a lovely nutty flavour that I really enjoy.

One of the best things about this plant is that it is very easy to save seed and also to self-sown it in the gardens giving you a wonderful fresh crop in the spring, if you have not winter seeded them, the rule I like to use is if I can work the soil enough to plant peas, I can plant the seeds for Mache. The only thing is that with most plants that will easily self-sow, it will happily plant itself where it was not expected but as it goes by seeds, its still easier to control then those that spread by their root system.

Now I would love to be able to give advice on which kinds to grow but I got free seeds at the local free-cycle group years ago and have been growing it ever since, and it came with no breed to go with the name, so I can’t.. I think? it is might be Vit. They will never get very big, you are harvesting what most folks would consider at mico greens stage, however, you don’t have to do each leaf, you can cut and clean and use them in their little bunches.

Having said that my books all say to start Mache 10-12 weeks before the last spring frost in your cold frame or hoop house, and 6 to 8 weeks for direct sow in the garden, this plant does not do well in the heat of the summer, but you can start again in the fall, with 6 to 8 weeks or so before the first fall frost date (however I have pushed this one, I have gone as close as 4 weeks and still had good results) As you would guess this is a very healthy green, its very high in Vit A along with a number of others..

Warning: Chickens, Ducks, Rabbits and every other four legged critter on a farm loves this green and protection must be given or else you will find your chickens devouring it with gusto as soon as it comes up or just when you think fall planted, overwintered crop is perfect for spring harvest, if given a chance the chickens will clean you out!

Breakfast- Two small slices of no knead bread with two dippy pullet eggs fried in a bit of duck fat.

Lunch- Pasta leftover from last night, pasta with fresh greens(grown in pots in the house) and homemade pasta sauce “jerk” flavour 2011

Supper-Ground Hoggot (1 year old lamb), Potato’s(storage from garden 2011), Fried Onions(fresh ontario)/Green Peppers (freezer from garden 2011)

Drinks/Snacks-Water, Coffee, Mint Tea, Poppy Seed Cake

Posted in March Challange | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Composting for the Feb Challange

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This month on the sustainable eats Urban farm Handbook year long gardening challange, it was soil buiding..

Ok, so the photo does not look like much but when we got that amazing spring snap of weather at the first part of feb, we got busy and cleaned out over 3/4 of Girls huge loose stall’s deep winter pack, leaving her bed area still in the deep pack method so that she still had a nice naturally warm and thick sleeping area.

What you see above is in fact a eight feet long, four feet wide and over three feet deep wonderful mix of cow/bedding, in the middle I added in some fowl dropping/bedding with two more layers of cow.. a number of buckets of warm water have been poured on top, and its been hard at work, the steam has been rising off of it and it has dropped by about a foot already in height..

Its now covered in snow, as it looks like march is coming in like a lion 🙂 but i have no doubt at all that under that snow covering, that deep in that pack, its still chugging away, once we get to above 0 temps again, i will turn it, added another couple buckets of water      and let it go again.

While I do have worm bins under the rabbit hutches, the above compost is to hot right now for me to add any to it yet, but once it gets turned twice more and cools off, I will make a couple small holes and adding a few hundred worms to it. Its always amazing to me just how fast the worms reproduce when given the right conditions. When I am working in my gardens, I like to count the worms in a singe turn over to get a idea of just how healthy my soil is..

I also started a older compost pile that is being prepped for growing mushrooms in it, its coming along nicely, and I am looking forward to a early flush of mushrooms for the house, I have high hopes for the logs we did up last year, here is hoping for many pds of oyster mushrooms out of those logs for the next three to five years.

Posted in gardens | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Confiting- perserving meat with a fat covering

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I have to admit that I still have a bit of trouble with this one, not for short terms perserving but the idea that confit will last three to four months.

Confit appears to have come from France as a way of perserving. The meat is salted, then cooked long and slow in fat. It was the way to perserve duck and goose mainly for the winter use.  Now its used year around for most fowl.

Confit is stored in cleaned, boiled glass jars that the meat is placed in and covered and filled with fat to keep out all air, The meat takes serve weeks to mellow and is to be stored in a cool dry place.

I have a couple different jars of duck legs covered in duck fat aging at this point. I have not yet tried putting them in crocks (has anyone else and did it work well?)

I can see why it was mainly ducks and geese, you can’t get enough fat off chickens to make a good confiit, where as you can off the ducks or geese, also the chicken fat’s quality can not be compared to the duck fat’s which is excellent. I did render the duck fat and clean it before using it, I have seen some books recommend pouring off the fat as the duck cooks and saving it for this, i would still give it a final cleaning personally.

I think it would be a better idea to confit the chicken meat with the duck fat personally. I have tried both salting the meat and or corning the meat, and both have their own finished taste, the salted is much more mild but the corned duck legs are a lovely color in dishes with its deep rich red, and small amounts work wonderful in green salads or larger dishes, or use like a good bacon, a little goes a long way.

I have some in the fridge, an some in the cool dark cellar, I am planning on openning one per month at the 1, 2, 3, and 4 month stages to check quality and flavour. Some books seem to say that a few weeks is all and others say that the flavour continues to develop with age. If you have done this, what is the longest you have left it and then used it safely? Was it kept in the fridge or the cellar, and if so, what was the average temp of the cellar?

Duck Confit Quiche -Serves two for supper or four for light lunch with side salad.

Basic pie crust for one regular pie pan.

  •  6 pullet eggs (or 4 regular eggs)
  • 1 cup of sheep’s milk or heavy cream per the recipe
  • 1 and half cups of duck confit in chuncks, pulled apart -I used two duck legs
  • 3 tbsp of parmesan cheese
  • 1 tsp of chopped basil
  • 1 tsp of chopped horseradish greens
  • 1 tsp of chopped chives
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

Oven 350, Beat your eggs in the cream, add the duck confit, then cheese, herbs, put in your pastry and bake about 30 min till puffed up and golden, serve with a green salad on the side.

Posted in food, Food Storage | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The Dehydrator Bible -The Personal Touch! Seminar with Don Mercer

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

The Dehyrdator Bible by Jennifer Machenzie, Jay Nutt and Don Mercer

I have already done a book review, on this solidly useful book, I still find myself reaching for it at least once or twice a week to check my temps for what I am preparing for the dryer.

However I was able to take a seminar with one of the authors and thought I would do a round two and touch on some of the things he talked about.

“Food drying is something everyone tries at least once but rarely do it well.”

The main goal regardless of what you are drying is working to that magical sweet spot of getting your foods down to 10 percent of their wet weight, but as most folks are not going to do the math, the experts have taken that to explain we are looking for a leathery feel with some flexiblity.

According to him, if you are wanting to bring juice out of berries to then added and use in your leathers, freeze them first before simmering them, that you will get a better, higher yield in regards to the juice vs the fiber, this is interesting, and the other would be the case for drying.  If you want to make a berry paste, freezing will therefore remove more juice, and allow you to dry your fruit leathers faster.

He says the hardest thing to dry is the Tomato as it’s typically 95% water, roma’s are typically 92% water, where apples are 84%.

Always be flexible, while it’s worth writing down what worked last year, it won’t be the same this year, according to him, each season is different, as everything you are working with will have different weights, thicker or thinner skins due to the changes in growing season to growing season, so something that worked last year at seven hour, might take six or eight this year.

If you are in a market for a dryer, he recommends that you look for one that will blow the heated air ACROSS in the airflow, not the Top or Bottom Airflows.

Higher temp are not better, as once you cross over that 50 to 55c line (which many dryers will do) you are looking at Nutritional degradation. Also the higher the temp, the more likely you are to be baking them, rather then drying them, the higher temps used in drying in a regular oven or in a improperly made solar oven is the fact that you don’t get enough air movement, and create a stagnant boundry layer.  Getting solar fans to make sure you are having the correct air movement in your solar dryer is critical.

If you have improper high heat or a stagnant boundry layer, then you are looking at Case Hardening, which in a nut shell, means that by either of the ones listed above, you have created a hard outer shell that prevents or restricts moisture from leaving.

Solar dryers:  We are in a good area in regards to the amount of daylight, however most commonly built solar dryers take good air movment, and have a hard time with temp control, highly recommends you have one or two built in solar fans in your homemade solar dryers.

If possible use stainless steel baking racks from old ovens as the main racks, then get 1/4 inches plastic mesh, if you are drying in larger amount for critter feed, then you can move over to steel window mesh for reasonable prices and large space. For indoor dryers, he says that plastic needle point canvas cut to fit, works very well.

Herbs should never been done higher then 45c, and if you walk in and it fills your whole house with lovely smells, it’s too high, reduce your heat.  Example given was mint, if you dry your mint too high, the house will smell wonderful but the tea won’t taste much like mint because you have released most of the oils in the drying process instead of saving them.

Ideally you should have no more smell in the dryer than if you hanged to dry the herbs by air if at all possible.

Over and over, this was the key message:  Longer times and slower temps will give you the best result!

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hope this loads for you..

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Maria Dunn – We Were Good People (Live) – Copyright Maria Dunn & William…: http://t.co/ARpujqVQ

The Edmonton Hunger March took place on Tuesday, December 20, 1932. Protesters planned to walk in an orderly and peaceful manner from Market Square (currently the Stanley Milner Public Library) to the Legislature to ask for government assistance for farmers and the unemployed in the midst of the Depression. Wielding billy clubs, police on horseback broke up the march. In researching this event, I read an unpublished letter to the Edmonton Journal, written by William Dolinsky in 1999, in which he described the events he had witnessed. He wrote: “I remember well this Bloody Tuesday” and asserted, so eloquently and simply: “We were good people”. Of the 10,000 people reportedly in the square that day, I imagined the debacle from the point of view of a mother with two children.
***
I was an ordinary mother in 1932 My husband out of work and more worries here than food I was weary with asking the man for relief Feeling like a beggar, being treated like a thief
So when word of a protest started going round I bundled my boys for the long walk downtown And bless them, they didn’t make a peep about the cold One was only 5, the other 9 years old
We were good people, gathered in the square It wasn’t ease and comfort had driven us there
Well the air was almost festive with Christmas trees in view But as we moved to leave the square and march the Avenue A sound I’d never heard before turned my heart to lead The sound of a billy club cracking open heads
Well I’d always taught my sons we were safe around police But when they charged on horses, I dragged us off the street It made me so angry they’d endanger children too In silencing the voices of 1932
We were good people, gathered in the square It wasn’t ease and comfort had driven us there But they treated us like criminals for showing our despair Oh I remember well this Bloody Tuesday
Where was the government who wouldn’t let us starve? Who wouldn’t take the farmer’s land, who knew we worked so hard We, the people, were just scraping by for our daily bread We had voted for the cowards and away they turned their heads
Now I’ve read it in the paper, this supposed “Hunger March” Was the scheme of Reds, they said, our hunger was a farce Well I don’t care what they say, for me it did ring true An ordinary mother in 1932

 

 

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

Garden Monday-Indepence Days-Monthly “How does your Garden Grow”

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I decided to combine the wonderful Independence Day Challange with the once a month garden update for my monday’s main posts. Going to also add links to blog I read that are doing this challange, if anyone else who read’s me is going to join, please let me know in the comments and I will link you in as well!

Plant something: Pea’s, Pumpkin seeds, Onions, potato’s

Harvest something: Everything counts – Sprouts, Eggs, Milk, greens, onion greens

Preserve something: Made Crackers that will store a month in a glass jar, dryed potato’s, canned baked beans, confited duck legs, corned duck breasts and a whole leg of lamb

Waste not: made bone stock, picked feathers for later use as stuffing for bedding, critter compost, check and rotate stock

Want Not: 7 Spending days out of 27 this month so far, I am not sure how to count the pre-payed fee for my seminar, I eat breakfast at home, brought water and snacks, I did get both snacks and lunch provided with the day long seminar and I had supper at home, I didn’t spend a dime extra but I did pay for the day at the seminar a month plus ago to get the extra early-bird savings on cost. I’m open on how to fit that in?

Eat the Food: See Food Storage Fridays Reports Feb 24th day report, other then hubby going for subway on sunday at his writers seminar with the guys, everything eaten this week has been homemade.

Build community food systems: Went to the local (been on now for 30 years) local eco-farm seminar, took in key note, plus a seminar on building a farm website or e-store, a seminar on Small Sacel and home dydrations of fruits and vegetables, and a seminar on organic health for greater wellness and energy (for that time slot, I think I would have liked the abc of organic soil and plant fertiliy imputs a bit better) with networking and a organic local company’s and products trade show.

Skill up: Startings seeds, trying a new hemp bag sprouting idea, new books on cooking, gardening, information from the seminars, many free books or magazines from the trade show, which included a lot of information in regards to some of the latest info for things that can be applied to the farm, small critters or my cheese making.

So this is the end of the month, which means it time for my “how do your garden grow” from the  Cheap, Fast and Good’s posts on How does your Garden

Running total for 2012- FarmGal-How does your garden grow.

Total output : Seeds- 146 dollars, One order for Fruits, Fruit Bushes 55 dollars and a second order of native fruiting bushes 166 dollars, Supplements for the garden and soil building etc 143 dollars

Impute’s : Sprouts $10  Greens $8

Output : $510

Impute 24.45

In  the hole by 485.55 “Ouch!”

Posted in farm, gardening, gardens | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Buying in Bulk for the farm/garden/critters

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Wow, was this a output in terms of cost, and I will need to buy a few more steel garbage cans to make sure I can have proper storage for some of these, last thing I want is to lose even a few ounces of any of these..  Each one was choosen with care for what they could offer to the farm. As they said in the seminar, most of the food you buy at the store is lacking in trace minerals and vitamins, and what is not in your soil, will be lacking in your grown fruit and veggies, as well as lacking in your hay and therefor in your critters.

50pds of Bentonite Clay- Detoxifier, Antitoxin as well as Antibacterial
44pds of activated charcoal-Toxin binder
50pds of Diatomaceous Earth-Feed Supplement/Parasiticide
5 gallons of 35% Hydrogen peroxide-Disinfectant/feed supplement
55pds of Kelp Meal-Reduces Mastitis and abortion rates, improves milking production and overall improves immune response.
15 gallon barrel of white vinegar at 20%- Disinfectant and Defoliant

and I put in a order for

  • 50pds of Greensand
  • 50pds of Gypsum
  • 3 gallons of Molasses for the garden/compost

As odd as it may sound, I think I am most excited in regards to the vinager and trying the molasses in the garden and compost process to see if it really does help or if I got took 🙂 at the trade show..

What are you hoping to buy in bulk this year and use in the garden that is new and in trail form, or do you have something you get every single year that you would not want to be without?

A little garden Case Study for you.. What questions and advice would you give?

Early retired baby boomers in their early sixties bought a farm five years ago, they are trying to garden just under half an acre, poor heavy clay soil is their main concern. They have about a dozen chickens with a hawk issue, no other livestock other then the farm dog,  they do a organic (not certified) hay crop each year that they sell to the small horse farm next door that breeds arbians. They are mainly organic about 50 to 60 percent at the store and about 40% or so in regards to meat..

The question I got asked was “how do i improve my soil and my garden results, I tried organic gardening and its just not working, the bugs, the plants are not growing well in our soil and the yeild results are very poor”

So, what would be your questions and advice.. -note, I will only be able to give answers to the questions if they are the same ones, either I or the others at the table asked them?

Posted in gardening | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Day off the farm taking in a seminar..

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

As I watched the snow come down and down yesterday and last night, I was not looking forward to getting up bright an early to get to my seminars and many folks didn’t make it..

The seminar itself was run very smoothly, and the folks were friendly enough, the seat were comfy and the food was healthy and for the most part tasty, the coffee rocked!

The trade show was small, and for new folks I’m sure it was interesting, but I had seen all of them before for a number of years now, I was sad to see that there was little to no seeds for sale, as I had hoped to get seeds there and not have to get to the seedy saturday in March but that didn’t work so well.

The key note was very good, and off to the first seminar which was about how to make a website or blog to promote your farm, the speaker was very good at tech but it was far more basic then I thought it would be, and when asked if anyone in the room as a website/blog and I was pretty much it, I ended up being asked questions from the group and pretty much gave about 1/4 of the talk over all..

Then it was a nice long lunch with time for the trade show (which I had done before the key note) and so found a nice quiet table an was going to blog with the laptop given that I had high speed, when four of the folks plus mates from the website seminar spotted me and joined me, with thanks and questions..

After answering questions and being asked for advice on what would I do if I wanted X to happen, I finally called it and said I needed to go to the drying seminar, I was so excited as I have this speakers book and love it! I was not dissapointed in him at all, he is a wonderful speaker, and I will do a bit more as I want to review his book and link it back to  some of the thing in the seminar itself.

However this seminar was to be for small scale farm and personal home production, I was more interested in the small scale farm, but as it turned out the other 60 plus were all in baby stages, as in how do you dry berries? What kind of tray do you use for this thing? As was proper, he kept it to the basic level , although it did geta bit more interesting in Question and Answer, I just wish we had more time there.

Then on to the health and wellness in regards to your food, it was again not what I expected, the speaker was smart, interactive and very into her lifestyle and choices, but she pushed over the top to the point that most of the folks were crossing arms, leaning away from her, covering their mouths and at times refusing to make eye contact, all sure signs that it had gone just a touch or more to far from main stream to even be truly heard.

The main thing she truly offered was a list of six book that would “change your views and life” Care to guess how many of those books I already own? If you said.. all of them, you would be right..

When I was a little child, my grandpa used to say to me, “if you have not learned something today, then its not been a good day” and I have to admit that I really do feel that way, if I have not learned something, read something , practised a skill or spent time working skills of some kind with the goal of getting better or learning how to do something, then I really do feel like something is missing in my day..

I went to the seminar with high hopes to learn lots, and have to admit that I was underwhelmed, no fault of the speakers or the seminar hosts, they were excellent!

I wanted much more indepth information to really grab me and spark my passion, give me new thoughts and idea’s that would take me forward into the coming year..

Instead, I have come home thoughtful.. and just a touch concerned at what I can only express as what seemed like questions that on the face of it, would appear that folks are lacking what I consider knowledge in some very basic things.

 

 

 

Posted in Personal Care | 4 Comments