We Can't Get No Dehydration...

One of the best forms of food preservation has remained elusive to us for the past week. Just as we were preparing to introduce an exciting and new form of food-drying, our tried and true method bit the dust. These would be the solar food dryer and the electric one, respectively.

Our electric dryer, which can be identified only by its manufacturer, "B & J Industries", and vague "Model # 7010", remains somewhat of an enigma to me. What has more miscellaneous information about everything than the internet? And yet the only two leads I could find on this dryer are an ad in a 1980 issue of Backpacker Magazine and a thread on an online forum called "Rapture Ready" in which the writer talks about hers suddenly ceasing to work. That's just what happened to ours, and in the absence of any information on the omnipotent and omniscient internet I was forced to take matters into my own hands.At this point I'd like to harp on the benefits of a well-rounded childhood. Last week our intern Tracy said her son asked "how does Dan know how to do so much stuff?" (keep in mind, this is through the eyes of a 5-year old). My answer: I took lots of stuff apart when I was a child. My family can attest to this. Apparently it is only much later that one learns how to put stuff back together again.
But back to the point. I'm not very electrically savvy, but I could figure the dehydrator out after taking the back off. It runs more or less in series from the power supply through motor, heating element, thermostat, and thermal cutoff, which is the safety fuse in case the whole thing overheats. Bypassing the thermal cutoff (which breaks at 98° C) I found the whole thing worked. To make a long story short, I found 98° C thermal cutoffs online and got one for a little under a dollar. Which is really a ripoff, because if I ordered 1,000 of them they would only cost 34 cents each...
I haven't installed it yet, because I have been too busy dancing with excitement around our new solar food dehydrator! For my birthday I received a book, The Solar Food Dryer, which discusses the concept of using solar energy and contains recipes for dehydrating. Which I skipped right over to get to the plans it gives for building your own "high-performance, low-cost solar food dryer". It took me much longer than it had to to build, because I'm not great at assembling all the materials before beginning. As far as I can tell at this point, it is certainly capable of high performance and was relatively low-cost, depending on what one has lying around.
For materials the plywood, pine and redwood were free, and the big pane of glass was donated from friends' renovation project. (I actually got two of those panes, so I am building one for us down here and one for the folks up at Ecology Action). For the first unit I also scrounged much of the hardware (or fabricated it) from found items. For the second I am using "nice" things that I bought. It is sort of hard to nail down a final cost for the hardware (screws, handles, hinges, screen kits, thermometer, misc. other) because I wasn't keeping great track, but my estimate is about $75 per unit. Maybe less.
Those with more discerning tastes for the final look might spend more, and those who have a keener eye for scrounging parts would spend much less. Probably the only somewhat mandatory costs are the thermometer (~$7), screen kits (~$30), weatherstrip ($5), and the high-temperature stove paint (~$12). The gathered ingredients look something like this.
I put it all together, and ended up with a very nice, very effective piece of equipment. How effective? I was hoping to get it finished when we would have full summer sun to use it, but only just got it all finished this past week. We put it out Wednesday afternoon when the temperature was about 70° F and the interior temperature hit around 140° F. One afternoon wasn't enough to finish the large screen of apples, so we put it out again Thursday morning and they were dry before noon, again hitting about 135° F on a day with a few drifting clouds. So with mid-October sun angle and cool temperatures it still did the trick wonderfully. I'm sold. Well, I was sold before, but now I would recommend it to others.What we have now is a contraption that, with no further cost, will dry two 42" x 30" screens at a time full of yummy fruits and veggies whenever the sun is out. Yay!

Let's go to the County Fair!

This year we were hoping to attend the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show and the California Wool and Fiber Festival, three big events bundled together. It is a great time because, besides the usual rides and fried foods, it has lots of free samples of apples, wonderful art and craft displays, tons of cute animals, a whole building of fiber stuff, and best of all, the Sheepdog Trials. If you want an impression of how cool these dogs are, check out this youtube video of the 2008 Champion at the Mendocino County Fair. Picture 1,500 or so people behind the camera hanging on every motion of the dog. Previously that has been the highlight for us.

So what would have ordinarily been a fun time turned in to much more this year, as one of the Willits Spinning Guild members was organizing the Fiber Festival part. She came to the August meeting and announced that she wanted it to be a good show, so everyone should submit at least something for judging. It was a reach for me, but I decided to submit four samples of yarn I am spinning for Margo to crochet into an afghan. Just to fill the ranks out, you know.
We went to pick up the booklet that tells you guidelines, divisions, categories, and classes, and it was thick. Margo couldn't resist looking through it, and as she did she got ideas, marking pages that she thought were fun possibilities. She became more and more ambitious, and in the end decided to submit two pies, a plate of cookies, and solar-canned peaches and pears.
In this way we brought extra excitement about the fair. Sunday held the Sheepdog Trials and the spinning contest, so that was our day. We got there in time to see the last two dogs, then wandered straight over to the fiber building to greet friends and check out my submissions. I ended up with a first, second, and third place ribbon among four samples, which felt great. There were some fantastic projects in the mix, all woven, knitted, crocheted, tatted, felted, etc. We got to see our friends Steven and Tamara, who go about in fashionable buckskins and are the most hardcore primitive-skills people we know. At their booth they had home-made examples of everything from arrowheads to nets, plus some further down the alphabet. They have a company called Paleotechnics through which they sell some kits, have a number of books, and do an incredible amount of education.
Then came the spinning contest. I spun in it, and Margo helped the judges get everything organized and processed. As you see in the photos, there are a few styles of spinning represented: drop-spindle (my choice), Navajo spindle, and spinning wheel. The contest has three parts. The first is the warm-up spin. In this one they give you some fiber and a blindfold. The pictures tell the rest. These ladies are using the Navajo spindle and, as they have probably been spinning twice as long as I have been alive, are not much hindered by the blindfold. I was another matter...The second part involved spinning for quality. This was broken down into many classes, dividing by age, experience, and method. I am experienced enough to not be a beginner, but not so much that I can compete in quality with the average "experienced" spinner. The only other experienced drop-spindlist had 20 or 30 years' practice on me. But we had fun. And I got to show off my andean-plying skills. For a great description of the technique check out this blog post by an intrepid spinner. I've created my own way to avoid the necessity on my drop spindle, but the contest involved extenuating circumstances. And, as I said, I got to show off.
The third part was as hopeless as the second in terms of winning, but was a real hoot to try. It was the speed contest, and was only divided into beginner and experienced, all else considered equal. There is no match for a spinning wheel in all-out speed. There was a great clacking and clattering, and I was reminded why I prefer simplicity to mechanization. If anything had gone wrong with one of those wheels it wouldn't have been pretty. The one next to me sounded ready to throw a rod. So no prizes for Dan there. Below, Margo helps to make sense out of a tangle of niddy-noddys.After winding our way through buildings and displays, sheep, hogs, cows, bunnies and fowl we finally made it to the Arts and Crafts building to see what kind of success Margo had found in the canning and baked goods. They were spread all over the place, whether to make better decoration or because of some strange sort of logic, we weren't sure, but it took a while to find all her submissions. First we stumbled across the Shoofly pie, which had a second-place ribbon on it. It's always nice to see that someone else thinks your family recipe is [almost] as tasty as you do. Wandering, we found the solar-oven-canned peaches and pears, which won first and second places in their classes. After more searching we found the mint-chocolate-chip cookies in a glass case, with a second place ribbon on them. Great victory for the Royer-Miller kitchen!
It took us a long while to find the final submission, her "All- Pumpkin Pie", but when we did we were quite pleasantly surprised. It won first place in the Pumpkin Pie class and Best of Division for pies and pastries! A little blue ribbon and a big purple one. How about that?
The downside of submitting baked stuff to this fair is that they do the judging the Wednesday before the fair opens. Then it sits there all Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before you can pick it up. At the least it means stale cookies. At the worst, in the case of moist stuff (like pumpkin pie), it means a healthy layer of mold. Nothing says "Yum!" like a big purple ribbon on a moldy pie. Below is the pre-penicillin version.So if you want the secret to amazing cookies and pies, you know who to ask. And remember: if it molds, it is natural.
Out of nine submissions, then, eight won awards. What's more, the cash involved paid for the submission fee and gas to the fair! But not the garlic fries and the funnel cake...

First Frost!

No soft about it: the weather has shifted, and last night it went right down to 28° F. That means the end of our beautiful solanaceae element. Peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, they all have a sad look about them. And any amaranth still in the beds took a very ugly turn when they thawed out. Similarly the buckwheat.
Luckily we saw it coming, and got the sorghum out last week. Our favorite variety is Dale, which produces both seed and syrup. The seed can go through any freeze, but the sap goes through a chemical shift after frosts and becomes much less palatable. So we always want to make sure we harvest the sorghum and run it through the press with time to spare.
The millet seems to have passed through alright this once, and the corn is as happy and dying as ever it is this time of year. Our little baby rye and wheat plants love this kind of thing, so if they make it past the birds and rodents they will get big and strong despite the winter.
And the heater turned on in the house last night... Looks like Fall!

Happy Fall Equinox!

Well, here we are on the other side of the main growing season... I took the photos two weeks ago, when the amaranth and beautiful colors were still present. The amaranth has been harvested now, and some of the green is starting to fade into yellow. Nothing like the yellow of the hills around us, which are parched from the typical summer of no rain, but the yellow of things that aren't going to grow any more no matter how much water they get. Corn, for instance.

Our second earliest sweet corn, Brocade, has only remained in the bed this long for one reason: the supposedly "bush" style beans have climbed up it and show no sign of slacking. As you see in the photo the crispy corn stalks are peppered with the lush green of beans. Though loathe to cut a productive plant off, we'll have to do it in the next month to get in our cover crops.
This is the turning point of the annual cycle, when the garden begins to take on a different look. Step by step, week by week, as each main season crop is harvested the observer can see farther and farther. Six weeks from now, where once stood many visually impenetrable layers of plant matter, there will be nothing but 1" to 8" tall cover crops, and one will be able to make eye contact with a fellow agrarian across the garden. It's pretty exciting. And most of that plant matter will be stored away against the rain for compost material next spring.
Like the straw from the grains we harvested in June and July. Last week apprentices Ed and Natasha finished threshing the last of it, which is another happy moment. Once the rains start everything takes on moisture whether they are covered or not, and moisture makes threshing much more difficult. We have all started working on threshing main season stuff like amaranth, quinoa, and teff.
Speaking a little earlier of compost, we have noticed that clearing beds of immature stuff from weeds to "catch crops" (which I'll talk about in a future post) brings with it a dire need to build more piles. Margo has been diligent at this, starting the second pile in as many weeks. Pictured here is the first, resplendent in its amaranth and bean layers. Usually spring is the most intense composting season, and piles are built and added to gradually until winter comes.
Late summer brought with it the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show and the California Wool and Fiber Festival, which are all held together in late September. We participated in it through attendance as well as submissions, the process and results of which are intriguing enough to be documented in their own post. Suffice it to say, we had a good time. Here I am participating in the "Quality" portion of the spinning contest, a drop spindle knee-deep in a circle of spinning wheels.
Makaiah's sunflower circle, referred to in the summer solstice post, is past its prime, but still present in full force. Planted a little closer together than optimally, they did not reach the towering height that other beds did. Still, they were over his head, and that was good.
One would think that the fall would bring milder, autumnal temperatures. This has not been the case, as we suddenly find ourselves needing to cope with 103°+ F days, which are supposed to continue through the week. Next week it is to revert back to the predictable mid to high 80' s.
With waning daylight and hopefully lowering temperatures, we are also faced with the last three weeks of the summer course, when the interns we have worked with and gotten to know so well head off into their next stages. Fall is a good time for contemplating change...

Preaching the Good Word

That would be "grains".

September has brought with it two things of note. First, that crisp, cool, beautiful weather I connect with Autumn. Second, the beginning of our Fall spate of teaching.

We kicked it off last Saturday at Common Ground, the garden supply store and education center in Palo Alto. As a part of their outreach, Common Ground offers all kinds of great classes on the basic theme of gardening. Because of their relationship with Ecology Action, a number of these classes are related to Grow Biointensive, and because of our work with Ecology Action we teach some of the classes. This is all to say that we presented two segments on grains to a wonderful group of enthusiastic gardeners on Saturday.
In two weeks we will go back down to present an Introduction to Grow Biointensive class and a class on composting. The following Monday I will give a presentation to the Ukiah Garden Club on seed saving, and the Sunday following that I will give a similar class at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. Two weeks after that we will be back at Common Ground to present on the Master Charts in How to Grow More Vegetables and on seed saving once more. Then, in early November, we will assist in Ecology Action's 3-Day Workshop. Lots of teaching!
Which leads to another fascinating realization: we know things that other people don't. As a dutiful product of a traditional public education, I still carry with me the idea that adults know everything and I have no meaningful knowledge whatsoever. Even though I have been an adult for a while now.
But this is all beside the point, which is that we had a wonderful time teaching on Saturday. Fifteen established or budding grain enthusiasts came and participated, hearing all we had to say and sharing some of their own wisdom on the topic. We talked about anatomy, characteristics, and how to grow, harvest, thresh, clean and cook common (and many uncommon) grains.
And the icing on the cake was that Margo and I spent about 5 hours the day before that grinding and making into biscuits wheat, rye, barley, triticale, oats, amaranth, corn, millet, quinoa, rice, sorghum, teff and buckwheat. We wanted everyone to get a feel for the distinctive taste of each grain. And we realized, as we were tasting them in class, that 13 biscuits are a lot to eat all in a little span of time. (We had a good bit left over).
What follows is one of the recipes that folks in the class were really interested in. More will probably come in subsequent posts...

Creeping Crust Cobbler (from Margo's mom)
Melt in 10' baking dish:

• ¼ c butter

Mix:

• 1 c barley flour (or whole wheat)
• ½ c sugar (can be reduced)
• 1 T baking powder

Mix in and then spoon over melted butter:

• ½ c milk or buttermilk

Heat and pour over dough:

• 3 c raspberries (or fruit of choice)
• ½ c or less sugar (or ¼ c honey)

Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F

Corn Pollination

This is the time of year to really buckle-down into seed saving, which is a simple prospect for many of our garden plants. Lettuce, for example, you simply let go to form a stalk and a bunch of little flowers, which then form seeds with fuzz on them like dandelions. With tomatoes you take the mature fruit, gut it into a jar, and let it sit a few days to ferment the protective layer that coats each seed. Both of these vegetables have something glorious going for them from the gardener's perspective: they are self-pollinating. Each flower has both necessary parts, fertilizes itself, and keeps unwanted crossing to a minimum.
Not so, of course, with corn. I won't go into any depth on the biology of corn pollination, since I wrote about that in an earlier post. But I would love to share how I deal with the question that follows that understanding: How does a person get pure seed under those conditions? Especially if they live in Corn Country? Especially when, if their seed gets contaminated by genetically modified crops Monsanto comes and sues them like they've been doing to lots of small farmers.
My solution comes from Seed to Seed, by Suzanne Ashworth. It is one of the great, comprehensive seed saving books for anyone who wants to understand the ins and outs of the subject.
Because it is a time, energy, and focus-intensive process at first, I started last year saving from three Hopi Blue flour corn plants. This year we planted out the resulting successfully-saved seed, together with some of the same variety bought from a catalog. The reason for this is that, in the case of most plants, genetic diversity is important. Seed to Seed recommends, as an absolute minimum, that 100 corn plants should be saved from. You will end up with 50 ears, though, because half of those plants will be participating only by tassel.
Maybe I should explain the method now...
There are two vital elements in corn pollination: the tassel (which releases pollen), and silks (which accept pollen). One silk only accepts one pollen granule, which will become one kernel on an ear. So essentially we need to stand between the silks and ANY tassels.
The best way to do this is by bagging ears before the silks emerge. Choose the best ears right before the silks come out (the only tricky part) and clip the tip of the husk off to see the bundle of silks. They grow fast, like an inch a day, so by clipping them like this they will all be the same size in one or two days when you remove the bag to pollinate them.
The next step comes one or two days later: the collection and distribution of pollen. Get more bags, stick them over tassels and staple them close to the plant, so no pollen drops out. Do this early in the morning before they start shedding pollen. Before it gets hot that day (hot enough to destroy the pollen in the closed bag), say maybe 11am, you take the bag off, bending and shaking the tassel as you do, and then you have a little pollen. Collecting and mixing all the pollen in one bag, you have quite a bit of it.
At that point you make the rounds of your bagged ears. Take off the bag, pour some pollen on the now-emerged silks, and then put the bag back on to mark the ears you selected.
It is a simple as that. As mentioned above, the only tricky part is trying to identify which ears have almost emergent silks. I cut the tips off of many husks only to be disappointed. But, as with many other things, if you don't start and fail a lot, you'll never know what you are doing!
So to sum up the ideal situation: 1) snip tips and bag 50 ears, 2) one or two days later bag 50 tassels from plants whose ears you did not bag, 3) collect the pollen later that morning and pollinate the 50 aforementioned ears. Done! Sit back and watch them grow, and harvest them when they are mature and dry.
Corn and squash are really two of the most difficult plants to keep pure seed from, so if you are feeling adventurous some year, do your reading and jump into it! Once you have it down, you can probably make at least a little money selling the results to a seed company.

Get Them Before They Get You!

I've hit a landmark of west-coast living that I put on the same level as learning how to surf. Last week I ate my first rattlesnake! It happened like this:

Garden Manager Ellen's son Cody, who roams the ranch fixing fences, irrigation pipes, and cows, occasionally runs across a rattlesnake. Often he kills it, and on one notable occasion he skinned one for a hat-band (turning down my suggestion of making gloves - you know, with little rattles at the fingertips?). The natural progression was to grill one up for dinner, which happened last week.
The photo shows clearly what happened: Cody relished it and Ellen, on the right, was disturbed, disgusted, and naseaus. Everyone at the table, in fact, fit into one of those two categories. Happily (for those of us in the former) Cody was willing to share!
Inevitably someone must ask "Does it taste like chicken?" To which I must answer "Probably it tastes like gutted chicken neck grilled with seafood spices." Specifically, a chicken whose neck was genetically modified to contain lots of very strong salmon bones. Tough, but novel.
I am told it is a lot better in stew, though somehow I had always pictured them cut in sushi-style rolls and frittered. Shows what I know. (That's me in the photo on left, sampling my piece).
Ok, now to a subject I have wanted to broach for a while. Hear me out before you mock. There are many among us who say "I am a vegetarian, though I eat fish" or even "I am a vegetarian" when it turns out that white meat in general doesn't count as meat to them. And saying "I am mostly vegetarian" is not objectionable. But I am betting that I could not get away with saying "I am mostly vegan." Never mind that I hardly ever eat meat, or that I consume merely a little butter or honey regularly. I'll let Nikki respond however she likes to that one.
I don't specifically want or need to be vegan (especially given the opportunistic tendencies demonstrated above), it is simply a hypothesis of mine that vegetarians are a little more inclusive with their designation. 'Cause I can still be a mostly vegetarian and eat a little rattlesnake if it crosses my path. Free-range, grass-fed, and everything.
Having enjoyed the novelty of rattlesnake, what other dangerous delights might be next? Here's a hint from our front door (picture it deep-fried, if it helps):