Glad I got all my spring garlic planted and mulched in for the winter yesterday…
scratch tortillas – 1st try
Grow your own. Buy in bulk. Make it from scratch. Those are the three guidelines I follow whenever possible, and in that order. My most recent DIY experiment is making tortillas the old fashioned way (here’s the whole grain corn tortilla recipe I used), starting from hard field corn and processing from there. I didn’t grow my own corn this year, so purchased a 25 lb. bag of organic field corn from Great River Milling. Ancient techniques for processing field corn call for simmering the hard kernels in an alkali solution first. From what I’ve read, processing the corn this way makes its niacin available to human body — in addition to other health benefits. I used food-grade
October 5, 2016
good salsa from so-so tomatoes
With the early frost a couple weeks ago, I had to pick all my remaining tomatoes while they were still very green. The best way to ripen green tomatoes is keep them in a cardboard box in a cool area — basement, garage, or shop — that stays between 55F-60F degrees. Once the tomatoes just begin to turn color, bring them inside to ripen the rest of the way at room temperature — 70F-75F or so. While this will get you ripened tomatoes, they are nowhere near as good to eat sliced as those sun-ripened on the vine. They do, however, make good salsa. For this batch I peeled the ripe tomatoes and
September 29, 2016
beehive bear fence
After a little trial and error, the electric fence to keep the bears away from the beehives seems to be working. It’s questionable whether what’s left of the second hive will survive, but the larger hive remains healthy and intact. Here’s to it making it through the winter! Installing the fence is relatively straightforward. For the way I set mine up, you need a 1-joule fence charger (I got one that would work plugged into an outlet, a solar charger, or a 12v battery), 4′ t-posts (however many to surround your hive spaced 3-4 feet apart), 14-gauge galvanized steel wire, 5″ offset insulators for t-posts, gate handles equal to the number of
September 25, 2016
deer winter garden prep
Planned to compost the spent garden plants this weekend anyway…. …might as well have some help since she figured out how to open the garden gate.
ripening green tomatoes
Summer was short in Montana this year. We had a bit of early summer in April, then it got colder again. I still ended up with lots of tomatoes — Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry, Purple Bumble Bee, Solar Flair, and Black Beauty. Few made it beyond green stage, though, before the first frost hit. I made the mistake of trying to ripen the first green few on a sunny windowsill. They did turn color. The ripe flesh was grainy and mushy, though, and not good to eat. For the rest I tried putting them in a cardboard box in the (relatively) chilly shop. The shop stays between 55F and 60F this
September 22, 2016
the bears and the bees
Lesson learned — if you live in bear country, install a high-voltage electric fence around your bee hives even if you’ve heard bears aren’t a problem in your immediate area. They can smell honey a mile away! I woke early one morning to find my weakest hive had been taken down over night. A small black bear came back just before sunup and I chased it off. I was leaving for a work trip that day, so did what I could with the time and materials on hand to secure the remaining 2 hives. I moved them inside the 8′ deer fence around my garden near a motion detector light, strapped
September 17, 2016
stringing chili ristras
Seems my chili peppers are ripening late this year. Last year the chilies started turning red in late July/early August. Good news is chilies will ripen off the vine. A great way to save space while they’re ripening is to create a chili ristra. Creating a ristra is easy. Get a sewing needle and sturdy thread (some material other than cotton since cotton may weaken and break over time). You can also use a thin fishing line. Sort your chilies into small, medium, and large sizes. Thread the needle with a string of thread double the estimated length of the ristra you’d like to create, plus 6″ or so. Match the ends
August 27, 2016
male squash blossoms
Two weeks in a row one of my regular farmers’ market customers has been asking me if he could get some squash blossoms. Personally, I’d rather have the whole vegetable and assumed if I harvested the blossoms, I’d have no squash. Not so. I learned squash plants grow male and female blossoms. Totally makes sense, of course — I just never thought about it much. The female blossoms produce the squash vegetable. The male blossoms are important for fertilizing the females. Once the females are producing squash, though, the male’s job is done. Since I have all the squash I can possibly use for the rest of this season already
August 26, 2016
fresh horehound lozenges
Yesterday I got some beautiful, fresh horehound leaves from a herb farm near my place. Horehound is great for reducing the congestion of an oncoming cold, so making this batch into lozenges in advance of the winter season. To make the lozenges, put a packed cup of the fresh leaves into a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan with a cup of water. Cover, bring to simmer, reduce the heat to low for 20 minutes. Pour the finished leaf “tea” into a mesh strainer over a bowl to catch the liquid. Squeeze the liquid from the leaves into the bowl, and add the liquid back into the saucepan. Compost the spent leaves. Add 1 cup of
August 25, 2016