Local food year round

An abundant harvest shouldn't be a bad thing, but at times it can be overwhelming. I was just reading a blog post by Gene Logsdon where he passed on the wisdom of years that taught him not to overdo things by planting more than you can deal with. I've given up on my pickling cucumber bed in the vineyard because I can't handle the amount of food coming out of it. Next year I'll plant far less. This was an experimental year in large scale farming and although I was cautious, I didn't anticipate the level of productivity a little bit of manure could yield. Even the sweet corn is getting overwhelming and I only planted two 30 ft beds of it. I've canned about 25 pints already! And after so many jars of salsa (fireroasted is the best kind), pickled cucumbers, corn, sauerkraut, and tomato sauce, I'm sick of canning.

This is the time when I start fantasizing about having a couple pigs to feed all the oversized summer squash, cucumbers I can't sell, and rotting, rain-cracked tomatoes. I could also feed them all the byproducts of my canning projects, grape pressing, and crop waste. I really want to make that a reality one of these days.  On top of that, there's the tons of whey from cheesemaking I could be feeding them; nothing like turning food waste into more food.
 

But isn't it nice that there are crops you don't have to eat fresh that store easily without any canning and the associated energy consumption and hassle? I have really grown to appreciate crops like flour corn, popcorn, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, winter squash and dry beans.  Winter squash, garlic, onions, and sweet potatoes just need a dry place to be stored.  I was using last year's garlic all the way up until I started to get the first harvest of this year's crop. Storing it at room temperature hanging up in braids or in a mesh bag keeps it halfway through the winter until it starts to get drier, then I move it to the root cellar so that it can retain moisture and experience cold temps to keep it dormant.

Why I Eat Rabbits at Dancing Rabbit

I realize that there are those who think it's just wrong to eat animals and I don't have any argument with them, but for those who are open to the idea, I thought I'd explain the reason why I eat rabbits here at Dancing Rabbit.

From what I understand, Dancing Rabbit got its name before the people who started it even bought the land in Missouri where the future ecovillage was to be located.  When they eventually moved here, they were surprised to find rabbits running around, possibly dancing (maybe if you squinted your eyes a bit), everywhere. So the name was never some kind of tribute to the abundant rabbits found here.



Rabbit in the pressure cooker

My first experiences with rabbits here were fairly positive.  I liked seeing them hopping around but always thought of bunnies as fuzzy cute things, never as food.  After gardening at Dancing Rabbit for a while, I came to realize that the bunnies made things very difficult.  They are pretty much the reason people have to fence their gardens.  If you don't have a fence, it will be difficult if not impossible to get most vegetables going, and forget about edamame or carrots for the entire season.  And they always seem to find ways to get into fencing and devastate your crops. Although rabbits eat all of some tender plants, they have a pernicious habit of lopping off the tops of anything you plant and just leaving the top sitting there uneaten. 

This habit has been incredibly destructive in the vineyard where, even though I protect the trunks of the vines, when it snows enough in the middle of winter, I'll find a year's worth of growth hanging free from its trunk on the trellis.  The vine will take at least another year to recover. Sometimes rabbits just damage the trunk and crown gall sets in, strangling the vine slowly over a few years if it isn't pruned to the ground.  It's setbacks like these, that a rabbit does seemingly on a whim, that are the most frustrating. "Oh, maybe I'll hop over here and set back his vines a year doing something that takes me about a half second to do---and then not even eat the vine at all."!!?

Winter Projects and Foods

Winter is probably the least interesting season for me.  Sure I like being able to slow down, read some books, and plan and think about the coming season.  But I think I'd rather everything be green and growing and be able to be out in it.  Of course, thanks to climate change, we have had a record warm winter, so there have been many days in the 50s and 60s in January and February so far. 

This winter I've been working on various finishing touches on the inside of the house.  I was racking my brains to find some good finish for the window sills of the deep wells on the strawbale walls.   I wanted something like tile, that would hold up better than earthen plaster to the wear and tear the sills would be subject to.  The commercial tile I was finding at the store seemed really boring, and the interesting Mexican tile was really expensive and not available at the local stores.  Then I stumbled across some more natural looking slate tiling.  Every piece was unique in its color and surface pattern, but they were all the same earthen hues.  I had the idea to cut them into shapes that would make them more interesting than just one foot squares.  The one foot square fit perfectly in the window sill with enough room to spare.  I cut the slate with a circular masonry blade. 

Gathering Food

It's been a while since I last posted something here, so I'll probably just try to do some posts bit by bit to describe the busy season I've had raising veggies, tending the vineyard, and finishing building my house. Fortunately I've been taking pictures, so there is some record of what I've been doing. I just haven't taken the time to update the blog this season. I wish I could be as prolific in my blog posts as Ziggy.

This season, there was a bounty from the garden in many ways.  Because I end up with so much of some crops I try to come up with ways to preserve what I can't eat right away so I can extend the bounty through the rest of the year.  Not so long ago, before the advent of refrigeration, everyone grew their own food and knew special ways of preserving it for the rest of the year.    Pickling in brine was a great way of keeping veggies edible for the winter and inspired so many delicious new foods.  These foods were fermented like saurkraut and could be stored without refrigeration in a cellar for many months.  One pickle that I like to make is the Korean kimchi, which is made with Chinese cabbage or radish, scallions, really hot peppers, and if desired, small fish like anchovies.  I like hot pickles and one of my favorites is a hot pickle mix of cucumbers, carrots, and hot peppers.  In this pickle everything becomes infused with the heat of the peppers adding a kick to the cukes and carrots.  This was a good year in the hoop house for pickling cukes, so I made a big batch of hot pickle mix.

Looking Back on the Season

This season I've finally been able to focus more on generating some income. My house being livable as of last fall, I've put the finishing touches on hold for most of the season so that I could devote more time to market gardening. The hoop house project has gone really well this season and has brought some more positive cash flow to my bookkeeping. Also, since I'm no longer in Wisteria Lodge, I've been able to rent it out to others and begin making money off my investment. This focus on money is mostly out of necessity since I've been only spending money since coming to DR. But it was all an investment in having a place to live, and in a future means of providing for myself. And although I say “making money”, using our Elms local currency a lot of my income actually comes from barter.

More hoop house pictures. We've gotten some more sunny days lately and everything started growing a lot.

Mesclun

Spinach

Bull's Blood Beet

Arugula

Below is some stir fry I made with fresh mizuna and pac choi from the hoop house. Below that is one of the salads I've been enjoying with my homemade organic raw milk feta cheese.

I took some cutting of my grape vines last fall and now I'm rooting them in buckets. If you put them in soil in a warm place, they will send out shoots and make their own roots.

It's been a while since I wrote here. I've been getting little projects accomplished over the winter, but mostly doing research and preparation for the season. Obviously, the hoop house has been something I've been able to work on even in the cold weather. I was out digging up the beds in January and February. Even through the blizzard, during which by the way no snow accumulated on top of the hoop house because of the strong winds, I was able to continue working in the soil.

I've been keeping track of lows and highs in there all winter and the lowest temp recorded was I think around 4 degrees, but that was without using the row cover, a thin plastic fabric, which insulates the soil and keeps a warmer microclimate underneath. Once I'd planted, first small test beds in late January and then the first plantings of most crops in mid-February, I used row cover to add another layer over the beds to hold heat from the soil in overnight. During the sunny days I would roll back the row cover so the plants could get heat and sunlight.

Hoop House!

It's finally getting to the end of the working season. We had our first snow yesterday and many days it's too cold to do much outside. I've finished most of what I wanted to finish outside, though I still have a few important tasks to complete, like building a wood shed and putting gutters on the house. For a while there I was worried I wasn't going to be able to finish the hoop house in time to plant in the spring. I've had a number of problems with the kit. There was no information in the instructions about how to build the end walls, so it's been interesting trying to figure out how to do that and how the plastic on the end walls is attached. There seem to be major parts of the instructions that are left up to the person putting it up to figure out for themselves even though parts provided are sometimes not compatible. It's been much more of a struggle than I would have expected from something prefab, but I have now finished it. The plastic is up and it's pretty tight for the winter.

Insulation in the attic

As the weather gets colder it seems I'm moving faster to try to get things done in time to move into the new house by winter. I'm shooting for Oct 31st to have it ready to live in and it's still possible I could make it. I just have to finish the earthen floor, get the wood floor laid on the second floor and enclose the east gable end. Once that is done it will be sealed from the cold at least. I may not finish the interior plaster, but I'm not sure I want to since I would like to add some detail to it and I'd like to take the time to make it really aesthetically interesting.

I found this little critter on the trim above the front door of the new house when I was about to lime plaster the wall. I've never seen a frog just sitting relaxing like this. It's a tree frog and probably like a cool spot to rest in. They have suction cup toes. I moved it before plastering.

Monarch Butterflies Take Over

I've continued this busy building season working on the house. I'm making progress on the earthen floor. The light clay straw has taken way too long to dry and is setting back the entire project, unfortunately. At least now I know it needs at least a month to dry. I've even resorted to pushing boards underneath the layer of light clay straw to prop it up and allow air flow underneath. This worked but it did loosen the straw somewhat. I couldn't wait any longer for it to dry though.

The monarch butterflies flooded our fields this year to feed on nectar from the white snakeroot. I don't know what was going on with the migration or why they are suddenly in such great numbers this year. I've never seen so many in one place before. All the white flowers in the picture below are white snakeroot and each plant has 5-7 monarchs on it. There have got to be thousands in our fields.