In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
They love insects, worms, caterpillars, maggots, larvae, meat if they can get it. They do need animal protein for a balanced and healthy diet – which means also chicken and eggs healthy to eat – and delicious. If anybody ever doubted that chickens are not …
I had never eaten homemade sauerkraut until I started to make it last year.
I can’t say that I really like the store-bought canned stuff – but I really like a Reuben sandwich, and you do need sauerkraut for that.
In my quest for more local homegrown or homemade food and in learning new (to me) ways of preserving food (and prompted by a post of Food in Jar on Home-Made Sauerkraut), I decided to give homemade sauerkraut a try and turned some of my spring cabbages into sauerkraut in early July last year. I used whey to kick-start the process as my research indicated fast fermenting was needed in warm temperature.The whey was supposed to introduce lactic acid right away to help fermentation takes over before spoilage happens.. I made several small batches experimenting with the amount of salt and the spices used. Some were so-so, some were OK, and a couple were darn good. The big surprise though was fermented spicy ginger carrots. THAT was terrific, and hooked me onto fermented vegetables. I decided I would try again come fall. Continue reading On Sauerkraut and Other Fermented Food
This is Swiss Chard in the garden today, unprotected, after weeks of cold weather, night in the teens (F/- 7 C to -12 C) and days of bone-chilling howling winds with gusts at 50 miles/ h (80 km). Not pretty, right? Certainly not much to …
2 feet of snow last week-end, temperatures in the lower teens (F/ about -12 C). I have not been in the hoophouse for about a week, and frankly I was not sure how it was going to be in there. Would I have mush? It …
Cornmeal is simply not used enough in sweets.
There, I said it: eat more cornmeal.
I like soft polenta (mush) and hard polenta (either – like oatmeal – taste sooo much better when made with milk instead of water). I like cheesy grits and creamy polenta. I like it with bits of smoky bacon and fried fresh sage leaves too. I like upside-down cranberry cornmeal cake and cornmeal cranberry loaf – actually anything with cornmeal & cranberries. As in those cookies. Continue reading Cornmeal Cookies
I have to confess that I do not have the proper respect for Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that food-centric holiday. It’s just that – not having grown with it – I am not enough imbued with its traditions, and I am trying …
The chicken have moved to their winter quarters.
We’ve taken the wire fence from the summer garden down; moved the electric net fence to enclose the new chicken area; relocated the coop inside the old summer garden, and built a little dome shelter – complete with perches – so the chicken can be outside the coop and dry on wet days – like today.
The idea is to harness “chicken power” in helping to prepare next year summer garden. We’ll give them the run of the area through late April, with the hope that they will eat the bugs, control weeds, aerate the soil and incorporate organic matter – including their droppings – in the top soil (since I am also piling leaves, old straw, and other organic debris in there). Besides providing us with tasty eggs, those girls (and one boy) are playing a big role in the cycle of the garden.
Come April, they’ll be moved to another area that I want them to help clear. We hope to rotate them every 6 months, with the idea that, at all time, one area will be under chicken patrol, one area will be fallow (with cover crop) and one area cultivated.
Meanwhile, this winter, we have work to do moving the stones around to change the perimeter of the summer garden. One can see on the picture low stone “walls” outlining the perimeter of the initial summer garden – about 28 feet square. We saw way too small when we first did it two years ago. Of course, at the time, it looked big, and picking and moving the stones from the to-be-planted area to the perimeter was no small task. Fields grow stones, around here! Prospectives have changed. Funny how that happen. I now have grand plans for extensive plantings of beans, corn & squash for next year, so the summer garden is likely to be 3 to 4 times bigger by the time we are done.
A girl can dream.
The stones will have to be moved.
I love fresh oysters. When we lived in the city, we used to go to the wharf for Christmas and New Year, get fresh oysters in their shell, mud from the Chesapeake bay still clinging to them. Later that day, Keith would scrub them clean, …