tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8837221480046160142024-03-05T13:17:20.543-08:00Tooling UpHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-6920682005230527152019-03-23T23:49:00.002-07:002019-03-23T23:49:49.869-07:00Temporarily living in Malaysia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We are living outside Kuala Lumpur for about six months, from December 2018 on. The company I work for has a partnership with Hanwha Q Cells to build a pilot scale silicon wafer factory using our technology on their campus here in Cyberjaya. <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/u-s-incubated-solar-technology-launches-factory-in-malaysia#gs.289zl5">See news story here</a>.<br />
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This deal was finalized about a year ago and we have been working very hard to make it happen since then. First came an intensive design phase last spring to update our equipment build package. Then we worked with our partner's machinery division over the summer in Korea to build the machines while construction got underway here in Malaysia for the new facility. Now we are working with their solar division getting the process running and ramping up production.<br />
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My family was able to come with me for this assignment and it has turned out to be a great experience for all of us. Part of what made it tenable for them was the fact that it is for a definite amount of time, not an open ended move. So we are living here kind of like we are on vacation from our normal lives. Well, I have to work a lot at the plant, but have no responsibilities outside of that. Most days we eat ice cream and watch TV on the internet after dinner. Might be hard to adjust going back to our normal routine later this year!<br />
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We are living in a pretty nice row house close to the factory. Luckily another engineer from 1366 was able to bring his family and lives in the same complex, so our kids can play together and not feel so isolated and lonely.<br />
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Becky and the kids do homework and swim at the pool in our development during the week, and on weekends we see sights or do other things around town together (picture at top is of us visiting a palm oil plantation). Food here is great, and cost of living is lower than at home. We don't have a car here (I take the local equivalent of Uber to work).<br />
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Society here is varied and highly multicultural. Most people can speak quite a few languages and are very open and friendly. Almost no americans here, and most people back home don't know where this country is or anyone who has even been here.<br />
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We have been keeping a blog about our trip here:<br /><br /><a href="http://gatewaytomalaysia.blogspot.com/">http://gatewaytomalaysia.blogspot.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-89413274455826321182019-01-15T03:09:00.001-08:002019-01-15T03:41:36.717-08:00Cider 14 (2018)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Apple Sourcing</b><br />
Once again we bought two bins from <a href="https://autumnhillsorchard.com/">Autumn Hills</a> in Groton. Ann Harris, the proprietor, said they were low on seconds this year since they had been selling to a cider making place, but she gave me a good price on a mix of seconds and prime grade apples. Jim Serdy and I went up there for the morning one day and packed apples into used Wacker Silicon boxes I got from work. We sent 22 boxes to Ben in Maine via van carrier. While not the cheapest solution, the combo of Autumn Hills and <a href="http://www.generalcourier.com/">General Courier</a> gets us good fruit at a convenient location for a bearable cost.<br />
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Dave and Emily had a sizeable contribution of apples from the orchard in Five Islands and some wild harvested apples from around the island. Last year's hard cider had an excess of acid and lacked tannin, so Ben returned to making the pilgrimage to <a href="http://www.povertylaneorchards.com/">Poverty Lane</a> in NH for a bin of bitter cider apples (Dabinett this time). They were low on fruit for outside sale this year at Poverty Lane, having suffered much loss from the depredations of animals. <br />
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I brought a symbolic contribution of GoldRush apples from my backyard in Somerville. </div>
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Since I was out of town much of the summer for work and thus not actively keeping the squirrel population down, I lost a fair portion of my apples to squirrel damage. My GoldRush tree continues to be the star of the backyard espalier lineup - profusely and annually bearing since a young age, easy to train, and neither too much nor too little wood growth. And the apples are fantastic; packed with flavor, very crisp for a week or two after picking, store well in the fridge, good size.<br />
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Cider weekend was held a week later on the calendar and we were unlucky with the weather. Friday night was cold and clear, but nice.</div>
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Saturday was cold and rainy. </div>
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The weather cut down on the number of day trippers on Saturday so we could all reasonably fit in the barn during the day. <br />
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<b>Equipment Updates</b><br />
This year we had two equipment projects. One was to hook up a rowing trainer as an additional power source to the apple grinder, the second was an elevator to move apples from a wash basin up to a spinning wash tunnel. <br />
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Eerik instigated the rowing trainer effort, buying a used one for a good price after arriving in Boston. He brought it in to my workplace and we tinkered with it in the shop after hours on Thursday evening. We removed the fan housing and machined a rigid shaft coupling to adapt the trainer hub to a piece of 5/8 shaft.</div>
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Later in Maine, a few of us had a productive hacking session after dinner on friday night.</div>
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we got a sprocket mounted to the trainer and worked up a mount for a hydraulic log splitter pump to couple by chain to the drive sprocket. </div>
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With a bike freewheel on one side, we had to thin down the #40 sprocket perimeter so it could fit a bicycle chain. </div>
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A quirk of the trainer is that the axle is mounted in soft rubber cups to the frame. This had the effect of making the axle deflect hugely as a pull stroke was applied, which made the chain coupling unworkable. Eerik, Ben, Keith, and Steven worked up an outboard support for the axle on the other side of the chain sprocket, which improved things. </div>
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We worked out a mount and coupling for a hydraulic motor on the grinder, to spin the grinding drum shaft directly. </div>
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Hydrualic hoses and other system elements were hooked up and testing commenced. </div>
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The trainer was able to pump a good amount of oil around the circuit before the motor went in, but once the motor was put in the loop the effort required to pull the rowing stroke became unreasonable.</div>
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After more fooling around, our conclusion is that the hydraulic motor has a high pressure drop to get moving at all, and doesn't seem to be terribly efficient even if you get it going. It was clear that the rower was not going to contribute much to the grinder when coupled in this way. <br />
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Perhaps next year we will try to figure out a direct mechanical coupling. The main difficulty with this is placement of the rowing setup. Access around the grinder radially is already pretty constrained with sections taken up by input, feed push stick, output, and bike power shaft stations. <br />
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The new apple elevator, on the other hand, turned out wonderfully. Ben had been wanting to do this project for a few years and had gathered some parts ahead of time. This year he did some supporting woodwork in the weeks before cider and had it far enough along that a final push by Rachel, Steven, Ben, and Keith on Friday night got it to a beautifully functional state.</div>
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The final implementation involves the elevator at a steep angle, plunked into the end of a big plastic tub filled with water. </div>
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Apples are fed into the water tub and gently picked up by the slats of the elevator. The action is powered by the same bike that runs the washing tunnel, coupled by V belt. The bike operator can push in a tensioning roller or not to cause the elevator to lift or pause as needed. The elevator allows a useful pre-rinse of the apples and makes feeding them into the wash tunnel a much easier and less wet job. Transferring apples into the low slung tank is a great job for the youngest of our cider workers.</div>
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One last minor improvement concerns press cloth. Last year I made up a set of new presscloths from what seemed to be the same 12oz cotton canvas I had used previously from Fabric.com, but due to either the weave or the sizing applied to the cloth, these had great difficulty allowing cider to flow through and we were not able to use them. This year I bought a couple purpose made presscloths from a cider equipment supplier, <a href="https://www.oescoinc.com/orchard-nursery/rack-and-cloth-presses/cider-press-cloths.html">Oesco</a>. The new special cider presscloths worked wonderfully and we'll most likely get some more of those next year. They are not cheap, but work very well.<br />
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<b>Food</b><br />
We've been developing a standby cider weekend menu these last few years and continued with the running themes<br />
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Black bean tacos on Friday night, led by Ben and Alexis. This year we had dinner at the big barn rather than the shore cabin since it was cold and we had work to do in the barn on equipment after dinner.</div>
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Breakfast Burritos saturday morning, led by the Kaufmanns. Delicious as always.<br />
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Nebraska cream can Saturday lunch, led by Dave and Emily.</div>
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Chili, cornbread, and apple crisp led by Becky and myself. There was plenty of orchard grown corn and rye left from last year, so that got ground up in the country living mill on the press bike. </div>
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I took home a good slug of the five islands corn and rye to grind at work for cornbread during our annual halloween chili cookoff.</div>
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We had plenty of help making dinner, and various supplemental food was supplied and prepared by other attendees. </div>
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Ned and his friend engineered the return of his tasty cider donuts on Saturday.<br />
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Buckwheat pancakes on Sunday morning led by Ben and Emily. Sunday was quiet as usual, but cold and overcast. </div>
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<b>Cider Production</b><br />
Total volume was not a record this year, but given the weather and lower attendance this was for the best as we could finish up apple processing mid afternoon and get cleaned up in plenty of time for dinner. The one thing that ran long was bottling last year's hard cider, with plenty of hard working attendees all day and Eerik continuing to work even after dinner. </div>
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Ben reports that total juice produced stood at 745 liters, at over 70% yield. The sweet cider got nearly cleaned out Saturday, which is usually not the case. I took home somewhat less than usual of the hard blend in expectation of being out of the country for half the coming year. The rest was put in glass and transported to the cellar.</div>
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Thanks to everyone who helped make cider 14 possible! </div>
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Thanks to Eerik for many of these pics.<br />
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You may find Ben's blog post on the same event <a href="https://fiveislandsorchard.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/cider-weekend-2018/">here</a> (using many of the same pics, since we drew from a common pool).</div>
Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-10926368646859283922018-03-27T14:44:00.003-07:002020-06-23T16:26:28.911-07:00School of Honk!, and learning to play Trumpet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've not been posting as much the past year or so, mainly because I've been working less on the type of projects that I've come to see as good material for the blog. House maintenance and the like just don't motivate me enough to share here as other projects do. In addition to less bloggable projects though, I have been spending a significant fraction of my free time on music and language learning. I though I might make some posts in those areas over the coming months.<br />
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In the music area, I sort of unexpectedly started playing the trumpet in August. Yeah, sounds funny, right?<br />
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Somerville is home once a year to a fantastic festival called <a href="http://honkfest.org/">Honk!</a>, wherein boisterous street bands come from all over the country and even internationally to play on street corners and parade around the streets. It is a good time and we have been going down to Davis square for years to take in some of the energy and music during the weekend of Honk!<br />
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Just over three years ago, some local enthusiasts and musicians organized an open community band inspired by the Honk! festival called <a href="http://schoolofhonk.org/">School of Honk</a>. It welcomes newcomers, even if they have never played an instrument before, and I think for all the green members the music comes off as pretty damn good. The band owns and maintains a number of loaner instruments for newbies to use. They run a summer camp which Child 1 went to last summer.<br />
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Child 1 has always liked brass bands, since she was very little, and has enjoyed going to Honk! So she was psyched to attend the summer camp with her clarinet. The camp did not disappoint, and she had so much fun that she wanted to start going to the weekly meeting for SoH every Sunday. She made some friends at camp and loved the energy. Now it is without a doubt her number one favorite thing in her life.<br />
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The first event we did post-camp with the band was to join them on a trip out to George's island in Boston Harbor over the summer. We explored the island for a while before the music started<br />
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then Child 2, Child 3, and I followed the band around while Child 1 paraded and played with them.<br />
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These people sure looked like they were having a good time!<br />
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Some weeks later, I took Child 1 to drop off at SoH sunday session. People were not really sure if it was ok to drop off a 10 year old, so I just stayed there to watch. One of the leaders of the trumpet section, Candy, came over and strongly encouraged me to blow a horn even if it was the only time I'd ever do it. She said trombone is easiest to get sound out of for a beginner, but I felt like it is such a <i>large</i> instrument it could be hard to transport by bike. Plus I've always liked how the trumpet sounds. So I grabbed a trumpet and paraded down Main st. with School of Honk to Kendall square and back. I tried to copy other trumpet players in fingering some of the songs, and the more experienced players were helpful and generous with occasional instruction. It is even possible I made the right note a couple times.<br />
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Parading with the band, draped in a borrowed polka dot scarf and blowing a plastic trumpet, I could see delighted, shocked, and nonplussed bystanders witness our passing by, many of them whipping out their phones for a video. Almost all these surprised people were smiling. Between the music, the spectacle, and the welcoming atmosphere, this was a ton of fun! And Child 1 had a blast and was highly committed to continuing to attend.<br />
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So the very next day I bought a used student trumpet off craigslist for $80, and I go with Child 1 to the Sunday SoH get together every week we can make it.<br />
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I don't practice as much as I should at home, but it is surprising how fast I've been able to develop some basic skills. After 6 months I can sort of play about 3/4 of the songs, especially if I can keep an eye on an experienced player nearby to remember the fingerings and get the timing right for when to come in. I can't get past F at the top of the treble clef yet, and my face gets tired quickly while playing, but I can feel improvement happening. There are quite a few people in the band who play very nicely and were beginners just like me only a year or two ago. <br />
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Meanwhile this experience has made Becky and my neighbors appreciate the trumpet much <i>less</i> than they used to. I tried playing with a practice mute, but it makes playing much more difficult, even after I drilled some extra holes in the mute. Sometimes I play with the bell facing a crumpled up blanket sitting on my lap some centimeters away, which helps limit the volume. Actually the second mute I got is much freer blowing and works pretty well. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/TPT-2A-Aluminum-Trumpet-Bubble-Mute/dp/B0002FO57C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522171886&sr=8-1&keywords=bubble+mute&dpID=413YW0WOKDL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch">This "bubble mute" by Jo-Ral</a> was more expensive and doesn't stay in the trumpet as well, but it sounds better and is not too difficult to blow through.<br />
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Still not quite like playing unencumbered but ok if I need to be quiet. As I get better, it gets easier to play with less volume, and my playing gets less annoying for others to listen to. Or maybe they are just getting numb to the barrage of horn sounds? I am still awful at improvised soloing but I have faith I'll get better if I keep working at it. <br />
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In the fall, Child 1 and I got to perform with the SoH band in the actual Honk! festival. We played a set in Davis square<br />
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and Blackbird Special on a stage in Harvard square. The band dress motif is polka dots, so I got some fabric and sewed Child 1 a dots shirt to wear for the festival.<br />
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The kids worked on their own little projects while I was making the shirt.<br />
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Just about a month ago, Child 2 and I started joining the SoH dance section when it is running (once a month usually). A few awesome dance leaders choreograph group numbers to SoH songs and teach the rest of us. This is really fun and adds another dimension to the SoH experience. Becky even came to dance section for the SoH party around Mardi Gras time. <br />
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Child 2 got a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/ammoon-Melodica-Instrument-Beginners-Carrying/dp/B014HB54OO/ref=sr_1_3?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1522172067&sr=1-3&keywords=melodica">cheap melodica from Amazon</a> and has started hanging out with the reeds section during non-dance sundays to start the process of learning the songs.<br />
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She plays piano pretty well, so the main challenge is learning songs and figuring out how to play whilst holding the instrument and blowing in the tube, parading down a city sidewalk.<br />
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Child 3 has gotten interested too, and says he wants to play trumpet with me. So we've started practicing a little a few days of the week. When he can play the notes for middle C up to B he will be ready to start learning some songs. His favorite one right now is African Marketplace, which I know 100% and play around the house frequently. He is learning a low section which only uses C, D, Eb and F#.<br />
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Here are Child 3 and Child 2 helping me give my trumpet a bath.<br />
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Maggie (a trumpet section leader) gave a great lecture on brass instrument cleaning and maintenance at a trumpet sectional meeting and we wanted to put the instructions into practice. The valves are definitely smoother and faster since the deep clean.<br />
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SoH is absolutely awesome, and we are so grateful to all the people who put in their time and energy to make it happen. I have never experienced anything nearly as fun and rewarding when it comes to playing music, so I am eager for us to take advantage of this opportunity while we can. Everyone is friendly and supportive and the music is great. We donate as much as we feel able to help with the cost of keeping it rolling.<br />
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I actually stopped practicing my fiddle in January in favor of focusing on trumpet, and have also set aside the concertina I got last summer. At present I have a wonderful venue for playing every week on trumpet with an amazing group of people (including my kids), so I want to maximize my uptake of that while possible. Whenever I find myself not going to SoH every week for whatever reason, I'll pick up the fiddle again. Or maybe after I get to a minimum functional level of skill on trumpet.<br />
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If you live in the area and have ever had a desire to play this kind of music, you should come check it out, even if you have never played before. We meet on Sunday afternoons, in various locations in Cambridge and Somerville. Check out the website <a href="http://schoolofhonk.org/">SchoolofHonk.org</a> and get on the email list to find out where we are meeting every week!</div>
Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-43079872345151804392017-11-07T09:32:00.004-08:002022-05-11T13:42:56.761-07:00Cider 13 (2017)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another great year for cider. The weather was beautiful, the company good, and the cider delicious. Ben's writeup can be found <a href="https://fiveislandsorchard.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/cider-weekend-2017-the-fruit-of-our-labor/">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Apple Supply</b><br />
Apples were plentiful this year. This makes sense since apples tend toward biennial production, with last year being light and the year before being very heavy. For the first time the orchard in Five Islands made a significant quantity of fruit. These trees were planted over ten years ago and are mostly on Antonovka. They are getting pretty big now, and looked lovely in the spring when covered with blossoms.<br />
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Ben and his parents have worked hard to build the orchard and take care of it, so it is satisfying to see returns ramping up. This year Ben spent plenty of money and time implementing an organic spray routine to keep the bugs down, and Emily and Dave picked about 1000kg of fruit from the orchard and from wild and untended trees around the island.<br />
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There were still a few apples on the trees in the orchard when we arrived for cider. Emily led some picking on saturday, some of which went toward making apple crisp for dinner.<br />
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For quite a few years now we have sourced about half our fruit from <a href="http://autumnhillsorchard.com/">Autumn Hills</a> orchard in Groton, MA. They give us a good blend of high quality varieties including Golden Russet, Cox Orange Pippin, and Spencer. We buy two bins of seconds from them, and usually Ben has driven down in his truck to meet me there and pick them up. It is a lot of driving for him though, and he is already stretched thin working long hours with his company near Portland and preparing for cider in Georgetown. So this year we experimented with shipping the apples from Groton to Portland. </div>
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I salvaged a bunch of sturdy boxes from work; we empty out lots of these since a portion of our incoming silicon chunks arrive in them. One box holds 30kg of Si chunk, double bagged in 5kg portions. My original plan was to load the boxes and plastic wrap them to two pallets, but it turns out to be cheaper (at least with the company I used this time) to ship via <a href="http://www.generalcourier.com/">van courier</a>. The sales guy said the drivers are cheaper for a van and the vehicle burns less gas. </div>
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Jim Serdy, a friend from work, was good enough to join me for a morning of packing apples at Autumn Hills. </div>
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We loaded up 24 boxes from two bins, about 20-25kg per box. We picked a few pears and enjoyed the scenery until the courier showed up, then helped him load the van. That afternoon the boxes were delivered in Portland, then transported in Ben's big red truck to deeper Maine. With the purchase and shipping I spent around $400 on these apples, still a reasonable deal for having good fruit delivered.</div>
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Total apple input on Saturday was 1589kg.<br />
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<b>Equipment Upgrades</b><br />
First off, Ben rebuilt the hydraulic bike stand for the press. He incorporated an outboard motor fuel tank as the oil reservoir, taking the place of the bucket with a rag over the top. A new frame was built from 80/20 extrusion, with the exercycle mounting via front fork to the side.</div>
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The chain coming from the crank cog goes to a freewheel cassette mounted on a jackshaft near the bottom of the frame, complete with fully functional (though upside down) derailleur. </div>
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This shaft spins in pillow blocks mounted to the 80/20 and has a large diameter double groove cast iron sheave on it to serve as a flywheel on one side, with a small step sheave mounted in the other side to power arbitrary attachments on the table top via a long V belt. Just inboard of the step sheave is a sprocket which links by chain to the log splitter pump. The hydraulic controls are mounted to the frame such that it is easy to operate them while riding the bike.</div>
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This improved bike power stand will probably mostly run the Country Living grain mill those 364 days a year when it doesn't run the cider press. However, even on that day it is now possible to mill grain and press cider at the same time. This takes more concentration on the part of the biker, since the right speed to operate the grain mill needs a different gear than the final high pressure push of a press cycle. But the derailleur makes this possible.</div>
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As part of the new bike stand project, Ben replumbed the hydraulics and tidied things up so hoses are more out of the way and the plumbing is more svelte.</div>
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Another major equipment improvement was made by Eerik to the bottling rig. He built some cool linear slides from roller blades and 80/20. Ben and Eerik worked out a neat compound action footpedal system from odds and ends in the barn, with the force needed to keep the bottle filler seated in the bottle provided by the weight of assorted chunks of metal.<br />
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Eerik put in a very full day Saturday operating this new setup to fill many a case of 750ml bottles with last year's hard cider.</div>
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I bought an antique corn sheller from ebay and tuned it up in Somerville before cider. I'll make a post on that project later on. </div>
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To adapt it for use with a bicycle, I hand filed a die cast sheave to fit onto the square taper drive of the shaft. </div>
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This wasn't perfect but it worked well enough to shell quite a bit of corn quickly. Before trying it, I didn't appreciate that the cob had to nearly exit the bottom of the sheller, but was then pulled back and to the side by the spike disk and ejected out the side. So when I made the stand for the device to clamp to, it put the sheller too close to the table, resulting in the cob getting jammed. We pulled off my plywood base and mounted the thing on blocks to the improved bike power stand.</div>
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When we first tried the sheller on Friday night, everyone was highly impressed by how quickly and efficiently it stripped kernels. One problem though was this it sprayed corn absolutely everywhere. So we quickly repurposed a plastic bin to fit over the device and contain most of the corn blizzard. Ben is working on installing a chain guard below.</div>
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I taped a flap on the cob-out hole to keep kernels from spraying out too much. Somehow when the cob boinks its head out of the flap after the raucous stripping of kernels, it is tremendously amusing. Check these videos out.</div>
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The only downside to having the same bike power stand operate the cider press and the corn sheller/grain mill is that the rider has to pay more attention to the press operation than the grain. So I think the throughput on the grain suffered a bit, and we were cutting it close with finishing the grain processing in time to turn the output into dinner.</div>
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I made up 8 new press cloths for cider this year since we were running low after a few old ones suffered blow outs. I ordered the same 12oz cotton canvas from Fabric.com which we have previously used with good results. The fabric that arrived was extremely stiff, I think because of some kind of sizing applied to the fabric. After cutting and hemming the edges, I did wash the cloths twice and machine dry and steam iron them once, but they were still quite stiff. I figured they would get worn in quickly and folded them up to bring to Maine. </div>
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However, trouble was immediately had when using the new cloths in the cider press. The fabric seems to be resistant to passing liquid through its weave, so the layers of wrapped up shredded apple acted like water balloons rather than sponges getting liquid squeezed out of them. The stack of grates and bundles would buckle and try to squirt out the side rather than compressing smoothly. As a result the new cloths were put aside and the old cloths were made to limp along and give another year of service. </div>
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Not sure what to do about the new cloths - I'm thinking washing them a few more times in hot water with strong soap, maybe once with bleach? Anyone know a good way to strip sizing off new cloth?</div>
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<b>Cider Processing</b><br />
Running the cider process went well.<br />
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The bike driven washing tunnel was set up again<br />
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This time with some manipulators to help the apples get out at the end.<br />
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There were enough willing people to operate the machines and do the labor intensive step of cutting bad spots off the incoming apples before putting them through the washer.<br />
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The grinder had few problems despite getting rode hard all day and put away wet.<br />
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Ben had an electronic scale for the block and tackle in the middle of the barn, and used that to weigh all the apples before processing.<br />
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After the issues with the new press cloth were figured out, the pressing part of the operation went smoothly.<br />
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Cider is kept track of as it is bottled.<br />
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Child 2 helped me wash out and sanitize kegs, then I racked the remaining carboys of last year's cider into these for carbonation and bottling.<br />
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Here is a whirlwind tour of the main steps of the process:<br />
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The final count as taken was </div>
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1589 kg apples <br />
1041 liters of cider</div>
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This works out to about 69% yield, consistent with our previous years. This amount of apples is a good fit for our current capabilities. All the apples were run and some cleanup done by the time dinner was ready. The different parts of the process are relatively well matched now with no obvious bottleneck, so to get much higher throughput in a single day we would have to upgrade several steps. Probably if we hadn't had to fool around with the new press cloths, the grinder would have more obviously been the pacing item.</div>
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On Sunday the bulk tank of the run destined for fermentation was distributed to carboys.<br />
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<b>Food</b><br />
Preparation and washing up was much more convenient this year because Ben and family had organized the acquisition and installation into the barn of a second hand stove, refrigerator, and sink. It was nice to be able to cook dinner without having to be completely removed from the goings on, especially since the nearest available oven would otherwise have required driving this year.</div>
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Food preparers seem to have settled into a routine menu:</div>
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<div>
- Fri. Night: Black bean burritos at the shore cabin (Ben and Alexis)<br />
- Sat. Morning: Breakfast burritos (Josh and Kelsey)<br />
- Sat. Lunch: Cream Can Supper (Emily and Dave)<br />
- Sat. Dinner: Chili, cornbread, apple crisp (Becky and myself)</div>
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I think it is fine to cook the same meals year after year. These are proven winners, and is once a year too often to eat cream can stew, black bean burritos, etc? I think not. Speaking for myself, I am having a more enjoyable time at cider since we chose easier things to cook for dinner. For instance, it is so much easier to make huge tins of crisp than it was to make four apple pies! And it is cool to process the grain to make dinner, which would not be possible with a lot of pre-work.</div>
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In addition to the standby meals above, participants always are generous and thoughtful in bringing other dishes and foodstuffs.<br />
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One thing the kids like about this trip is drinking plenty of hot cocoa<br />
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Becky prepping apples for crisp:<br />
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Dinner on Saturday<br />
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Breakfast on Sunday<br />
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Sunday lunch - leftovers!<br />
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<b>Grain</b><br />
Ben grew rye and a stand of corn in the orchard this year.<br />
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The corn was put into the homemade food dryer to get hard enough to grind in time for cider. This corn is a great looking open pollinated heirloom dent corn called <a href="https://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs/search?item=8055">Wapsie Valley, from Fedco</a>.<br />
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The Five Islands based crew had already threshed the rye with a string trimmer in a barrel and winnowed it using just the breeze.</div>
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Saturday we shelled enough corn for dinner using the Black Hawk No. 9 set up on the bike power stand in about 20 minutes.<br />
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I roped in Erin and Aaron to help with winnowing the corn, which was swiftly done with the dual box fan setup (the wind was too mild that day for winnowing).<br />
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This corn really is attractive.<br />
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We switched the sheller out for the Country Living Mill and started grinding (whilst pressing cider of course).<br />
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It seemed to me to go slower than the last two years. One issue was the knob controlling the burr spacing kept trying to back itself off every couple minutes, so you had to grab it and tighten it frequently. If one forgot about it, the output got too course and then needed to be put back through the mill. The Country Living is a well built piece of equipment though; I bet something can be done to fix that problem. </div>
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I cajoled my family into picking out the little round black seeds dispersed in the rye, which Ben says are vetch, plus the odd bit of trimmer string (easy to see since it is fluorescent green). The rye then went into the queue for grinding.</div>
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We ground up enough grain to make two big trays of cornbread according to this recipe (so 2x below list in total):<br />
<ul>
<li>900g corn</li>
<li>450g rye</li>
<li>140g chia</li>
<li>200g sugar</li>
<li>70g baking powder</li><li>32g salt</li>
<li>1.5c butter</li>
<li>1600g milk</li>
<li>10 eggs</li>
</ul>
Mix dry ingredients, work in room temp butter with cutters or whisk. Add wet ingredients and mix. Pour into parchment lined greased trays. Cook at 200C (400F) until tester comes out clean, 30-50 minutes. Top will be quite brown.<br />
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These two cornbreads turned out very well; great flavor from the fresh grain grown on site.<br />
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Rye was also used in place of wheat to make topping for apple crisp. Becky made up 15 recipes of topping, each consisting of:</div>
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- 1/2c oats</div>
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- 1/2c ground rye<br />
- 1/2c nuts<br />
- 1/2c brown sugar<br />
- 1/2c butter<br />
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon</div>
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Plenty of helpers were kind enough to run three apple peelers and two cutting boards to prep about 30L of apples mainly from the orchard. There were some Redfield, some Spitz, a few Wickson, some Indian Point Russet, among others. Two giant trays with nut topping were assembled, and a small tray with no nut topping. We had a huge amount left over since the people with little kids and babies had mostly turned in by the time it came out of the oven. Those giant trays take forever to bake through. It was good leftover Sunday morning, but there was still a ton left even after lunch on Sunday so next year we will reduce to one huge tray and one small tray. </div>
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Becky made 6 recipes of chilli, which was also too much. Probably cut back to 4 next year. We ate it for lunch Sunday, then took the rest home with us in our big pot. Our family then ate it for dinner for two more days, then froze it for a week, then finished it off as tacos after defrost. Whew, lots of chili.</div>
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On Sunday, with a less pressing (ha ha) schedule, Steven and I helped a handful of kids shell the rest of the corn crop.<br />
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People worked on bottling up the tank destined for fermentation, stowing equipment, and cleaning up the barn.<br />
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<b>The Scene</b><br />
This was the 13th year of this cider making tradition, and my kids are increasingly into it.<br />
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They really like going to Maine, to romp in the countryside, set things on fire, and spend time with the other kids they have made friends with over the years.<br />
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These days we always manage to stay in the shore cabin, which is an excellent place to visit. No electricity, plumbing, or insulation. But this adds to the novelty. We always make a fire in the woodstove morning & evening, even if the temperature doesn't truly warrant it. The view across the cove is very peaceful. Child 3 says he wants to live full time in the shore cabin, ha ha.</div>
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One of the attractions of the country for the kids is having more freedom than usual to roam around as they please, cut things with knives and burn them up in a fire. Fortunately there are some older kids who seem to be relatively reasonable about keeping things from getting too out of hand (thanks Wilkins kids!). Here they are grinding up some graham crackers with the country living mill, which they later cooked with other stuff as an experiment on the barn stove.<br />
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There is one dirt pile near the barn which could have almost been purposely set up to attract kids. This year it had an abundant crop of ripe milkweed pods waiting for them, the seeds of which predictably ended up all over everyone and the neighborhood. Child 2 stuffed her pockets with fluff, which later clogged up the laundry and required several rewashings of that load of clothes. But they had a wonderful time. Here is Child 3 rolling down the dirt pile with Nick. Amazingly there were close to zero injuries the whole weekend!<br />
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One downside of the warm and beautiful weather was that the yellowjackets were out in force. Only a couple stings though, which is better than I would have expected from these aggressive pests.</div>
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I had brought my fiddle to Maine on the off chance there would be time for music. Saturday is always super busy and chaotic and by the time things are settled it is late and it is hard to motivate to do much besides stare into the fire before turning in. But Sunday things are calmer and since we didn't have to get back to town early this year we took our time. I packed this stuff into our scion xB, along with sleeping bags, pillow, dinner cooking equipment, and the five of us. I have a large cartop carrier!<br />
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Ela had also brought her fiddle and was enthusiastic enough to overcome the reticence of a beginner like me and make it happen. I'm not good enough to play along with someone unless I've practiced that particular tune a lot, so I played some of my basic repertoire while Ela jammed some backup lines and chords. Ben soon joined us and played some of his tunes, and we both knew a couple well enough that we could play together. It was a lot of fun, and I hope we can do it again. </div>
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Ben walked us around the orchard on Sunday and climbed up a few trees to pick us a few Spitz and Wickson to take home. The trees are getting big. The best time to plant a fruit tree is ten years ago, so looks like we are ahead of schedule on that front.</div>
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<b>Brewing</b><br />
My carboys are now bubbling along slowly in my basement.<br />
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We use sulfite because it reduces the chances of losing a carboy and makes the results more predictable. I think you can get more interesting flavors using natural yeast and no sulfite, but I don't make enough cider to get the process stable and it really hurts to lose a carboy. Here is my process:<br />
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1) I put in 1/2 tsp sulfite powder to the raw cider, in the carboy it will ferment in (assuming a ~20L carboy), then put in a solid plug. Swirl/shake it up a bit.<br />
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2) At the same time, I make a starter by boiling 500-1000ml of cider per target carboy to sterilize it in a small pot with a lid. Then I let it cool sitting in a pan of cold water with the lid on. Sometimes I dump ice cubes in the tray if I want it to cool faster (usually I'm doing this at night just after driving back from Maine and I want to go to bed). While it is cooling, make some iodophore solution and sanitize a glass jug or empty 2L plastic bottle, a funnel, and an airlock that will fit the small bottle. Once the boiled cider is cooled down, funnel it into the small bottle.<br />
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3) Pitch yeast into starter, put on airlock, dose airlock with iodophore or vodka<br />
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4) leave this for 24 hrs. By that time, the sulfite will be dissipated in the main carboy and the starter will be developed. In theory you should be able to pitch yeast straight into the cider without making a starter. However, having tried this for a number of years, I always have better results when using a starter. Without the starter, it often won't start or will be very very slow to start and I'll have to fool around with it adding nutrient and warming it up, etc. The longer it sits without getting eaten by your yeast, the greater the chances something else will start eating it. Using plenty of starter will increase chances of success and make it more likely to just work without intervention. And you have to wait 24 hours for the sulfite to die down anyway, so why not have the starter brewing during that time?<br />
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We have mainly used champagne yeast, which is gives a very dry, clean tasting product, and is less prone to getting stuck during fermentation than some of the craft cider and ale yeasts I tried the first couple years of cider making. The one I most often have bought is Red Star brand, in a yellow packet and called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pasteur-Blanc-Champagne-Dried-Yeast/dp/B0064OBJ2E/ref=sr_1_3_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1510150075&sr=1-3&keywords=red+star+pasteur&dpID=51x4Mwx5glL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch">Pasteur Champagne Yeast</a>. However last year I tried something called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mangrove-Jacks-Cider-M02-Yeast/dp/B013J6ZWIG">MO2 cider yeast from Mangrove Jack,</a> and I liked the result better. I feel like it got going faster and it had more interesting side flavors going on. I'm using it on all my carboys this year.<br />
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5) pitch starter on cider in carboy, put airlock on carboy<br />
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6) wait 1-4 weeks for primary to go and die down. I keep it in my basement, which this time of year is 15-20C. I don't think it matters all that much how long you let it go, you just want to let most of the sediment settle and then take it off the sediment.<br />
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7) rack to secondary using sanitized carboy and tube. It can sit in secondary indefinitely - the cider we bottle during cider weekend is still in secondary from the year before<br />
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8) rack to corny keg<br />
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9) carbonate from CO2 cylinder<br />
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10) serve or bottle. I usually fill up two 2L plastic bottles with <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V334SME/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1">repressurizing caps</a> to drink from at a time.<br />
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<b>THANKS</b><br />
Cider as it currently stands would be impossible without plenty of hard work and dedication from many folks, both Maine based and visitors. Thanks to everyone for pitching in and making it an enjoyable yearly event. Thanks to Eerik for doing a great job with photos too, many of which I used in this post (you can find the rest of them <a href="https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipM80JtSFjaaE3hQrGXhlB_j_fp081hAmlc1x1TDuqB0Mr1AVlTCHu3_QyYF9hdPMw?key=eDBuQkdaYkJnUGZJbE5FZS1jZHpDeVR0dGdmLU9n">here</a>).</div>
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-91466847243161051612017-05-19T14:05:00.004-07:002020-06-23T16:26:30.030-07:00Garden Review 2016: Peas, Greens, Corn, Nightshades, Sweet Potatoes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Peas</b><br />
Child 1 and Child 2 grew old fashioned Sugar Snap on 120cm trellises in back of their patches, as seen below.<br />
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This variety is so far still my favorite and produces well, but of course needs support. The girls grew Oregon Sugar Pod II on 40cm trellises in the front. Child 3 and I grew OSP II on short trellises too, though I'm not convinced the trellises did them much good; they didn't grab onto the strings much anyway. Maybe next year we'll just grow them without support. OSP II is easy to grow and a good producer, even if the large snow peas are not quite as tasty as snaps.<br />
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It's hard to imagine having too many peas, and so far we have never achieved that happy state. Mostly I try to not grow legumes in the same spot two years in a row, instead alternating years with early season greens.<br />
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This year (2017) we will try Super Sugar Snap and Sugar Magnolia Tendril as well as OSP II.<br />
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<b>Favas</b><br />
Along with the peas, I planted a small row of Ianto's Fava. Something kept digging these up while they were in the process of germinating, and the ones that grew up had a tendency to fall over. But they ended up making a small bowl of beans by the time they were done. Wow did they ever attract black aphids; but to be fair these afflicted many other plants in early season 2016. I'm feeling like in a space constrained garden I'd probably rather just have peas. The fava flowers did look nice, and the plants look interesting.<br />
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<b>Greens</b><br />
Once again we had Tokyo Bekana, which continues to amaze. Also had some Tatsoi and Green Wave, which grow quick and easy, if not quite to the level of Tokyo Bekana. Becky is always a little annoyed at how many greens I bring in during late spring, so we end up giving some shopping sacks of greens away to friends, which I consider a fine use of homegrown produce. We also blanch and freeze some, but I feel with these varieties at least they taste rather bland after coming out of the freezer.<br />
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It just seems like a waste to NOT grow early greens in space which will not be planted until late May or early June.<br />
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For instance this year, I had greens in beds that would later get corn and potatoes.<br />
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The greens are not totally done by the time the main season crop wants to start, but the main planting is small for a while. In my 90cm wide beds for both corn and potatoes I put two rows, each 25-30cm in from the edge. So one row of greens running down the center works well; I can plant the next thing in the outer rows while the greens are getting big in the center. Then I cut the greens down when they are done and the next plants are gaining steam.<br />
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Another green which is a little <i>too</i> easy to grow, and perennial to boot: horseradish. I grew some in the orchard in 2015 but it got too tall so I moved it to the sidebar by the driveway where normal plants have difficulty. I made a point of giving extra water the first year, but it did grow well and looks interesting.<br />
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Once it gets established it seems pretty hard to kill. Remember those spots in the orchard I moved it from? Knowing its reputation for coming back from tiny pieces of root, I put two layers of cardboard over it and some salt marsh hay. Well, it came blowing right through that by July. I began cutting leaves taller than 20cm down to the ground every week, but it just kept making more.<br />
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I'd rather have kale, but horseradish greens are fairly edible. They get somewhat bitter late in the season especially if you let the leaves get big and old. They wilt very quickly once cut, and are thin. But especially if you have other greens to mix them with I think they are worth having. Their flowers are nice too.<br />
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Speaking of kale, we removed one of our sea kale plants this year because they were getting too big. This is another perennial green which is not as good as you wish it was. But again, when mixed with some other greens it is ok. The flowers in spring are really cool and smell strongly of honey.<br />
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<b>Corn</b><br />
Tried about 1.8 square meters of Parching Starburst Manna from Carol Deppe. Planted in groups of three in early June, thinned to one plant later on. The germination was good and the plants grew well, if not to a very impressive size. Here they are right before I took out the border greens and planted beans by them.<br />
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I was constantly shaking the plants to help pollination, which turned out ok but still had room for improvement. We let the corn dry most of the way on the stalks, then brought it inside. <br />
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I made two batches of cornbread for a chili cookoff at work entirely from this batch of corn:<br />
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It was a fun way to spend a couple hours; first I picked the kernels off the cobs, then ground them in the C.S. Bell #2, then made the batter and cooked it. I used this recipe.<br />
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Still have probably 1/3 of the corn left. I was saving it for a potential tamale making effort we may do with some friends; it would be cool if we had some token amount of home grown corn to contribute. I do want to make sure to try some parched which I have not done yet.<br />
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Tried to plant some pole beans at the edges of the beds after the spring greens came out. They came up well, but were apparently irresistible to the pack of rabbits that plagued our garden this year. Might need to figure out a way to cut back on the rabbits in future. <br />
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<b>Beans</b><br />
A few groups of Cosse Child 1ta pole beans were planted around, but all were a near complete fail. As mentioned in the corn section, young bean plants must be especially delicious to bunnies. Up on the orchard terrace level, I had about three plants growing up a piece of bamboo which the bunnies did not find. However after the first picking of beans, the leaves were near completely skeletonized by some insect overnight. The plants did not recover. <br />
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<b>Tomatoes</b><br />
A relatively small tomato effort in 2016, with just 3 Sungold, started inside and moved out in the second half of May to grow on a string trellis in the grain maze area. True to form for everything grown in the grain maze, they did better than terrible but put in a weak performance. I'm starting to think the root competition from the nearby sycamore maple is more oppressive to plants in this area than the shade cast by the tree.<br />
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We planted some morning glories to grow on strings up the edges of the trellis, which worked out pretty well.<br />
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This year (2017) I'm trying to get tomatoes earlier using wall-o-waters. My mom uses loads of these things, and they always seemed like a lot of work to me, but it would be great to get a few extra weeks of tomato season. We started Sungold seeds inside in February and put them out under wall-o-waters in late April, about a month earlier than I would normally put out tomatoes.<br />
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They look very happy in their jackets. We have not had a freeze that whole time, so they probably wouldn't have died even if I didn't put the water cloches over them, but the plants are growing significantly faster than they usually do when I transplant.<br />
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Child 2 is doing two plants in the terrace bed and I have four in the front box.<br />
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<b>Potatoes</b><br />
Planted about 4 square meters of Nicola bought from <a href="https://www.mainepotatolady.com/productcart/pc/home.asp">Maine Potato Lady</a> into a grain maze bed. Green Wave mustard greens were grown in a strip down the center of these beds, then the potatoes planted on either side of the greens using a handheld bulb planter.<br />
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This worked out well and the plants were happy other than showing the usual failure to thrive in the grain maze. They were done pretty early and we dug them in August.<br />
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<b>Sweet Potatoes</b><br />
After growing them once, I like this plant! One downside to it is that our resident rabbits seem to find sweet potato leaves extremely tasty. I got slips of Molokai Purple, Korean Purple, Apache, and Laceleaf from <a href="http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/">Sand Hill Preservation Center</a>. They looked pathetic when they arrived and I had my doubts about whether they would survive. But they quickly gained steam and looked set to do well, right up until they got completely defoliated by the bunnies.<br />
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I tried spraying castor oil, put on granular animal repellent, and a cage over some of them. The bunnies munched a few more times to a less severe degree, but I think the initial stripping really set them back.<br />
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Nonetheless we dug them in the fall and got an ok amount of tubers.<br />
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The rabbits didn't like the foliage of Laceleaf as much, but unfortunately some kind of root eating insect grubs preferred Laceleaf to the others and ruined all but one tuber. Molokai purple did not produce as much as Apache and Korean Purple. <br />
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Upper left is Molokai Purple, upper middle Laceleaf, upper right Apache, lower is Korean Purple.<br />
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I was hoping for more, but it was fun to eat these. No one except me was much into eating sweet potatoes, but Child 1 recently made some baked sweet potato fries that everyone liked pretty well. Over the winter I made pan fried and tempura fried sweet potato rounds a few times. Those were nice. Something must be done about the rabbits if I am going to grow them again though.<br />
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Another cool thing about sweet potatoes is that the above ground part is edible, unlike irish potatoes. Here is my friend from work Jim Serdy about to bike home with a box of apples and a couple of my just cut sweet potato plant tops.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-64971215265184565112017-05-09T10:53:00.000-07:002017-05-22T15:40:11.764-07:00Ramen Made at Home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Characters in Korean dramas are often eating instant ramen. Since we are hopelessly addicted to watching K-drama on the internets, we frequently find ourselves craving ramen. There are now numerous local options to get a tasty bowl of ramen in the Cambridge/Somerville area, some of which require a significant wait to get in the door. But I wondered how hard it would be to make ramen at home. <br />
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I ordered a few books from the library on ramen.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Untold-History-Ramen-Political-California-ebook/dp/B00J2RT9PO/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494001697&sr=1-19&keywords=ramen">The Untold History of Ramen, How Political Crisis in Japan Spawned a Global Food Craze,</a> by George Solt is about the history and development of ramen in Japan and was quite interesting to read, though it was originally an academic paper rather than a pop history book so the style is sometimes repetitive and dry.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Ramen-Obsession-Recipes-Unlikely-ebook/dp/B00CNQ9SFW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494001930&sr=1-1&keywords=Ivan+ramen">A semi-cookbook</a> about the ramen of a jewish, white new yorker whose life journey brought him to being a famous and highly acclaimed ramen shop chef in Tokyo was a great read. He shares his recipes and does not try to simplify them. It is refreshing to get a dose of the real deal, but daunting to contemplate the involved process using lots of ingredients over a considerable time frame just to produce the soup.<br />
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Becky is an amazing and efficient cook, and felt she could handle the soup part easily without any special measures. Plus I wanted to explore the whole dimension of home made noodle soups and I have an open mind about what can go into that; not strictly what people would call Ramen.<br />
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On the noodle side, I decided to start with something easy and see how it turned out. In my mind, a ramen noodle is a small to medium size springy noodle made from wheat flour. <br />
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The fact that it is a <i>wheat</i> noodle is central to the explosion in the production and consumption of ramen in post WWII Japan; food aid from the US (which we later made Japan pay in full for) to an impoverished nation with devastated infrastructure and agricultural production systems came in the form of wheat flour. Making this into noodles was about the best way for people at the time to eat it. Not being a bread based society and already having a tradition of noodles prepared and sold by street vendors meant that ramen provided the easiest conduit for wheat flour to get into people's bellies. And just as a practical matter, making noodles is faster and requires less fixed infrastructure than making bread. You don't need the fermentation time or a big oven. Because of widespread corruption in the occupational administration, much of the flour was diverted from official channels and into the black market. One outlet for that diverted flour was into ramen carts. Things really got going a decade or so later when instant ramen was developed.<br />
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Despite its roots as essentially fast food (originally derived from chinese pulled noodles, <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">拉面 - l</span>ā miàn), an artisinal branch of ramen eventually took root in Japan and a huge culture grew up around it. I guess it is sort of past its peak now, but it sounds like it was commonplace for people to travel to different parts of the country specifically to experience the ramen from a particular shop. The focus on ingredients, methods, and quality is similar to what you would see in other high end and specialty food niches.<br />
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Korea has it's own noodle dishes of course, but Ramen came there mostly starting with exported instant noodles from Japan. Maybe as a result of this history, the high end ultra quality ramen shop has not yet made serious inroads. Anyone have some info to contribute on the high end ramen scene in Korea?<br />
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<b>Round 1</b><br />
My first round of ramen making used the r<a href="http://luckypeach.com/recipes/fresh-alkaline-noodes/">ecipe from Lucky Peach</a>. I made up some baked soda for inclusion in the recipe ahead of time and just used all King Arthur unbleached flour. The dough was much harder to knead and roll than typical egg pasta dough. I feel like I'm asking for more broken noodle rollers and kitchen aid mixers!<br />
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Becky made up some great chicken stock to be the soup. She prefers a lighter broth, like you would get in a Vietnamese style noodle soup rather than the super flavor loaded, heavy and fatty ramen broth. She is cooking down stock every week or two anyway, so it was easy to divert some to noodle soup.<br />
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We picked the last of the leeks for the season and roasted them up with garlic and olive oil.<br />
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A leftover pork chop was cut up and combined with some brocolli, kimchi, spicy peppers, and green onions, and tofu to go in the bowls. Getting rather untraditional and busy for ramen, but remember the broadness of the noodle soup umbrella.<br />
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This bowl was ok but not great.<br />
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The noodles were too soft, too bland, and tasted WAY too stongly of baking soda. Maybe I overcooked them, even though they went into boiling water for less than a minute. Everyone ate some but mostly did not finish.<br />
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I dipped one bowl worth of noodles at a time into boiling water using a small, d<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LISNJT2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1">eep strainer I got from amazon</a>. This worked well for cooking, but perhaps I overcooked them. Or maybe I had added too much liquid while making the noodles.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LISNJT2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiDfysXU6nQNXrhB52PD4lvGS-1RpaeOSZP7xV27aimEQWHChRsNTJrEPV2kQOSgIOQDxPhro2jU6oeQkfJJzf-UOhDkM7So6xrgk6LDODctun__wpsxx9wH-NPywANrm93Q8w1vSL7k2k/s400/81fCzMywMHL._SL1500_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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The broth seemed a bit underpowered too, but it could just be the clash of expectations from saying it is Ramen to the experience of eating a lighter soup.<br />
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<b>Round 2</b><br />
About a month later, I wanted to try again. A friend from work, Jim Serdy, was coming over for dinner. I decided to try out the Ivan Ramen recipe for the noodles.<br />
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I was suspicious of the baked soda as alkaline agent, so I bought some liquid kansui from the internet. This recipe called for kansui powder, so I estimated the solids content of the liquid kansui at 30% and added three times as much. The recipe called for 5g powder; I put in 15ml (1 TBS) of liquid.<br />
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The other deviation was that I used all purpose flour rather than the combination of high gluten and cake flour. If you multiply the 14% protein of high gluten flour by its portion of the flour content and do likewise with the 8% cake flour, you end up at 12%, which is nearly exactly what KAF unbleached AP is at (11.7%).<br />
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I rolled these only to notch 3 or 4 (some would not go through the cutter after 3) on the kitchen aid pasta roller before cutting into noodles with the spaghetti cutter. Last time I had gone to 5 or 6. The thicker noodle helped with the overcooking aspect, and made for more bite when chewing.<br />
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I think the small portion of toasted rye flour really added a new dimension to the noodles and made them much more interesting in both taste and appearance.<br />
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They didn't taste overpoweringly alkaline like last time. However they were not as springy and delicious as I would have liked. Maybe I overcooked them again. Maybe a little more salt? I'd like to experiment with making a poolish with a portion of the flour and all the water, then combining it with the alkaline agent and the remaining flour the next day. Perhaps the additional enzymatic action overnight would add some more flavor.<br />
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Becky made a beef broth for this soup, which was stronger than the chicken from the first round of soup. It seemed more suited to the application. Since then I've experimented with dropping some kombu and a couple dried anchovies into Becky's stock while it is in second stage simmering. She already adds veggies, including dried shitake. I think the seaweed and dry fish add something to the taste without being explicitly noticeable.<br />
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Another addition was a roll of chashu pork I prepared in the slow cooker for about 6 hours prior to serving. I mainly referenced the recipe from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Simply-Ramen-Complete-Course-Preparing/dp/1631061445/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494002781&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=simply+ramne">Simply Ramen</a>, the cookbook I felt was overall most useful out of the offerings I sampled from the library.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Simply-Ramen-Complete-Course-Preparing/dp/1631061445/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494002781&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=simply+ramne"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPL7tZb89YEibaJpF0LTH6IWyc3GSWNCCbWJ5jBLm3gCdjiatQyZd_g23lSjhQU1oo1i_BQ1FdHo3AGyRlWgHg03XZbnc2-HAGyHLChSFc6S1mBIqf6Qqgnd24mMbHf_MkCqQTXt1B5fq-/s1600/61q7hI8O0cL._SX260_.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1357109314"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1357109315"></span></div>
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First I picked up a 2kg piece of pork shoulder from our neighborhood butcher. I cut the skin off and sliced it such that it could be rolled and tied.<br />
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These two rolls went into the slow cooker with slices of ginger and garlic, 1/2c soy sauce, 1/2c mirin, 1/2c rice wine, 1/2c water, plus some small potato onions cut in half with skins on. This pork came out extremely well and was a great addition to the bowl.<br />
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It being fully winter by this point, there was not a lot to choose from in the garden, so we served the bowl with some watercress from the store and the last scallions from the garden.<br />
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We will probably do some more ramen attempts in future, but I can't say we achieved amazing results with little investment of time and energy. I do fear for the life of my mixer and pasta roller too. In the new year we have been eating more noodle soups with rice noodles, which are perfectly tasty in their own right and trivial to prepare (using dry noodles from the asian grocery, but I guess that is true of ramen as well). It is hard to motivate to go to the trouble to make the ramen since it was not a smashing success the first two times. I'm sure success would come with perseverance, and making noodles is a nice way to spend an afternoon in any case. Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-63039879808452283732017-04-08T06:07:00.004-07:002020-06-23T16:22:43.816-07:00Garden Review 2016: Berries and Compost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another great year in June bearing Strawberries, plus significant contributions from the Alpines. A few tastes of other berries were had, but mostly still waiting for them to do anything. Compost is steaming ahead full bore.<br />
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<b>June Bearing Strawberries</b><br />
As a reminder, we have about 3.5 square meters each of Sparkle and Earliglow. They have were not quite<br />
as tasty and prolific as the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/03/garden-review-2015-strawberries-and.html">first year they bore</a>, but they were still great. As usual, the plants came in profusely starting in spring.<br />
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Oriental poppies, garlic, and peas in the back. Strawberry plants (Sparkle) in front.<br />
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Here we have Comfrey to the left, lovage, sage, egyptian onions in back. Earliglow to the lower right.<br />
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Too robust sea kale in the center, pathetic asparagus patch in lower half.<br />
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Child 3 inspecting his garden patch with grandma, with strawberries crowding in by his peas.<br />
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We picked lots of berries almost every day for weeks in June, and had plenty to give some as gifts and even freeze a few bags for winter eating.<br />
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I think Child 3 and Child 1 are crushing some below up for homemade ice cream, which is wonderful made with homegrown berries.<br />
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Next year, I'm planning on replanting big strawberries down in the grain maze beds, using new plants from <a href="https://www.noursefarms.com/">Nourse</a>. We will try Rutger's Scarlet, a June bearer which I've read good things about, as well as Mara des Bois, an everbearing variety with strong recommendations on <a href="http://growingfruit.org/t/best-strawberry-varieties/70">GrowingFruit</a>. I was surprised we had too many strawberries to eat with all June bearing from our small patch, so on the second iteration of planting these short lived perennials I wanted to put in some everbearing to spread out the harvest. My hope is that the strawberries, which can take a little shade, will do better than other plants down in the grain maze. It is an area that takes a bit of shade from a nearby sycamore maple and the house, where annuals have generally underperformed (right side center in below picture)<br />
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So this coming season (third harvest) will be the last for Sparkle and Earliglow in their current locations. I'm looking forward to having that space for annuals starting in 2018.<br />
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After the berries were petering out towards late June in 2017, we did the yearly bed renovation. The plants were cut down with the<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/03/best-garden-tool-for-2014-austrian.html"> scythe</a> and raked off.<br />
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Ah, kids look cute using a scythe, right?<br />
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My mom tried the scythe too when she was visiting in May, but she thought it would be a hard sell to get her husband Jerry to cut the grass with it :)<br />
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Plant stubs were thinned severely, then compost was shoveled in and topped with salt marsh hay.<br />
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Last summer was atypically dry, and especially on the east side beds (Sparkle). I think this set back the strawberries badly when they were growing back from the bed renovation. I spent quite a bit of time watering with a hose through June and July, but it is hard to actually water properly with a hose to the degree necessary when there is no rain. So anyway, Sparkle filled in very sparsely and I anticipate a reduced harvest from them this coming season.<br />
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In future, I'd like to get my drip lines down so I'm less sensitive to rainfall and it will be easier to water well when needed.<br />
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<b>Alpine Strawberries</b><br />
Alpines are making an excellent groundcover, and providing a steady small volume stream of tasty treats all season. This walk down the side yard is all alpines along the immediate border.<br />
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I'm starting to have second thoughts about planting Atilla, a runnering variety, since it is taking over and proving unruly. While making a good groundcover, finding and picking berries from a thick carpet of overcrowded Atilla plants is not easy.<br />
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Other plants I have in this bed like dwarf monarda and coneflower are getting out competed by the spreading Attila plants. The grape vine is above the fray enough to not suffer.<br />
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As with many perennials, these guys are doing too well in some areas but refuse to colonize a long bar of bed along the east side of the yard.<br />
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We planted some Yellow Wonder alpines from <a href="http://gardenplugs.com/">StrawberryStore</a> in beds created in 2015 for <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2017/02/urban-micro-orchard-year-3.html">apricot trees</a> and a grape vine. They grew well but didn't make many berries. Hopefully they are gathering steam for a good showing in their second year.<br />
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Though alpines produce all season, ours peak in June about the same time as the June bearers. You can see the take from our best day of picking the alpines in the lower left bowl below, along with the day's big strawberry picking and a harvest of spring greens in the shopping sacks to the rear.<br />
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<b>Other berries</b><br />
We ate a couple red currants from Jonkheer van Tets (left), a couple gooseberries from Hinnomaki Red (right)<br />
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one Goumi berry from this bush:<br />
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There might have been one Cornelian Cherry that fell off long before it was ripe. Or was that last year?<br />
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Nanking cherries are slowly sizing up, but blossoms were done in by frost; they do bloom very early in the season so I anticipate this will be a continuing issue.<br />
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The hardy kiwis managed to not die and grow a little. I finally got to taste some of these from a grocery in California; they were good! It is nice to not have to peel them like fuzzy kiwis. I hope we get fruit from our vines one day.<br />
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Blackberries were not too prolific and had a large percentage of inedible berries, though the birds ate almost everything before it was ripe anyhow. I planted a boysenberry my mom sent (it may die from cold in winter).<br />
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and a Prime Ark Freedom which I hope will succeed.<br />
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The kids enjoyed picking a few raspberries,<br />
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but they continue to not thrive for some inscrutable reason. The raspberries that is, not the kids.<br />
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We made a couple new tiny raised beds in the front side yard for more berries.<br />
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We planted two grapes in these from <a href="https://onegreenworld.com/">One Green World</a>: Marquis and Seedless Blue Muscat. Also put in mint, chives, alpine strawberries, and two little Top Hat blueberries from <a href="https://www.indianaberry.com/">Indiana Berry</a>.<br />
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The frames are 2x rough cut local(ish) green oak from <a href="http://brightmanlumber.com/">Brightman Lumber</a>.<br />
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I was looking forward to eating some grapes this coming season from my Mars vine, which is entering it's third season in the ground and was looking good last fall.<br />
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But a late fall construction project broke the vine about 20cm above ground. Rats! I hope it will grow back from the roots in a couple years.<br />
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<b>Compost</b><br />
We continue to throw everything in the compost, including bones and small animal carcasses. In the fall, when I finally got my anti-squirrel system figured out and running smoothly, the compost got a little stinky for a few weeks when I was putting in a squirrel every day or two. Otherwise the compost system is just remarkably trouble free.<br />
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When we cut down the strawberries toward the end of June, we shuffled the compost down the bin line. My sister and her kids were visiting at the time and were happy to help with scything the strawberries and sifting compost.<br />
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So the bin that had been mellowing for a year with no additions was screened into the next bin down to await spreading in the garden.<br />
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The screened out big chunks were returned to the bin receiving active new material to have another go at breakdown.<br />
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Things that seem to need more than a year are avocado skins and seeds, some bones, mango seeds, and thicker woody debris from the garden. I must have picked out a thousand little produce labels, and resolved to take more care removing these when they are used in the kitchen rather than having to pick them out of the compost.<br />
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Actually it is surprising that most bones break down in a year. My compost is not particularly hot, but almost all bones get turned into stock before going out with compost. Spending a day in boiling water probably makes them break down faster once they go into the pile.<br />
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We crushed up some hardwood charcoal and threw it in, after I got excited about biochar. It didn't get that small though and it was a fair bit of work to crush in our haphazard setup.<br />
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Plus buying lump (not briquette) charcoal is not much cheaper than buying biochar. I bought a few boxes of biochar from <a href="http://www.wakefieldbiochar.com/shop/">Wakefield</a> this year and was impressed with the product at least at time zero. It was fluffy and of a nice particle size; not so small as to be dusty, but still finely divided and without big lumps. Even though it is expensive to buy, my garden is small enough that it isn't such a problem, and of course I seem to love maximizing the money spent growing a little food.<br />
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For the last few months I've been collecting used coffee and filters from work. I put out a 20L pail with a sealing lid in the kitchen and told people they could put the used coffee from our communal machine in there if they wanted to support composting. I can bring home a bucket of coffee about every two weeks, which boosts our additions to the bin from the household by about 50%. I think this coming year will see roughly:<br />
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- 1 m^3 of garden waste (low density when put in the bin)<br />
- 1 m^3 of kitchen waste (veggie scraps, bones, food scraps)<br />
- 1/2 m^2 of coffee and filters from work<br />
- 1/2 m^2 of hay (put in as layers with other stuff when it seems too green and moist)<br />
- some potting soil, charcoal, ashes from the grill<br />
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This cooks down to about 1/3 m^2, which isn't much. I've been buying 1.5-2 m^3 per year the last few years.<br />
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I think for the next few years I'll still need to buy in compost, but maybe at some point I can get production on site up to meet my needs. Just need to collect more animal carcasses from around the neighborhood...<br />
<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-86683959402138762642017-03-18T06:07:00.002-07:002020-06-23T16:26:30.564-07:00Kids make more clothes for American Girl dolls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We rearranged some rooms in our apartment over the summer and created a project room. All the sewing, printing, and electronics supplies went there. The new room has a great view of the backyard and is a little isolated from the rest of the house, being up a back winding stairway on the third floor. This presents a bit more of a barrier to working on a project there vs. taking it out on the dining room table. But for a few months the kids were having a lot of fun hanging out up there by themselves listening to music and working on their own stuff.<br />
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I had helped them get started on some dresses for their American Girl dolls, I think in the spring of 2015. First we took some measurements from the dolls and drew up some basic patterns on paper. We taped these on the dolls and made some adjustments, then cut apart to transfer to fabric.<br />
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These were all hand sewn, since they were so small. Plus it is good to develop one's hand skills. Here is Child 1 doing her hem.<br />
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I helped Child 2 a lot since the sequined fabric she picked from the stash for her doll's dress is challenging to sew. She wanted it long sleeved, with lace trim.<br />
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She was pleased with how it came out.<br />
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Child 1 did almost all of hers on her own, with some advice at key points from me. She picked some scraps of vegetable print cotton I had used to make her and Child 2 some dresses a few years ago:<br />
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Here is Child 1's dress she made.<br />
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She used the circle knitting jig to make some mittens and a scarf to match.<br />
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Edges are trimmed with hand stitched hug snug ribbon. She added a faux button strip and button on the front.<br />
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Closures are with hook and eyes on back.<br />
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She was also very pleased with how it turned out.<br />
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Inspired by the success of the dresses, they made a bunch of other quick outfits too using scraps of fabrics that interested them. Child 2 made Kit two little skirts.<br />
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Child 1 worked on a holiday present for Child 2, which was almost a match for one of Child 2's outfits at the time. Child 2 decorated a ball cap with a ghost on it as a project at a friend's birthday party, and she wears it around backwards all the time, for a while she was even sleeping in it.<br />
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And she loves leopard print on anything.<br />
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Child 1 made these out of felt and scraps; it really does look like something Child 2 would wear!<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-34174857883277267452017-02-16T17:55:00.000-08:002017-03-19T14:16:48.266-07:00Sage Breakfast Sausage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/04/enterprise-5-antique-meat-grinder.html">Last time</a> we made breakfast sausage I followed the recipe from Ruhlman and lacking a stuffer at the time, formed it into patties. It was pretty good, but a little salty, and the kids found it too "spicy". They LOVE to eat frozen breakfast sausages from <a href="http://applegate.com/products/natural-classic-pork-breakfast-sausage--2">Applegate</a>. Now that we have a stuffer I wanted to try to make breakfast sausage the kids would like better, put into small casings. <br />
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I took a look at the ingredients label for the Applegate sausage, thinking to get some guidance about what the kids like. It goes like this:<br />
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<i>Ingredients:<br />Pork, Water. Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following: Cane Sugar, Salt, Spices.<br />Spices: Sage, Black Pepper, Ginger, White Pepper, Red Pepper</i><br />
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Ok, well I'm sure it's got more sugar than I put in mine usually; they taste pretty sweet. Kids like sugar; duh. I am willing to put in sweeteners, but I thought instead of cane sugar I could try to use sweet cider as the binding liquid, plus a dollop of boiled cider to add more sugar. And I never pass up the chance to use apples in a new application.<br />
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Sage is good, and I'm always looking for a place to use more sage since my plant in the garden is constantly straining to exceed the space I've allotted to it (on bottom left of following pic)<br />
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I decided to take out the ginger, feeling that it contributed to the complaints about it being too spicy. After looking at a bunch of other breakfast sausage recipes on the internet, I decided to cut back on the black pepper, but add in a little red pepper and some tyme.<br />
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Can't go wrong with garlic in my opinion, so I used a head of the Music we grew last season (usually 4 or 5 cloves).<br />
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For meat, pork shoulder was great last time, supplemented by some extra back fat. A previous project had left a good size chunk of back fat in my freezer. Becky had bought a beef heart a few months prior to examine and dissect for her science club, and sausage seemed a good place to use that up.<br />
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I picked up a new lump of shoulder from our neighborhood butcher, <a href="https://mfdulock.com/">M.F. Dulock</a>. The fat and heart came from there as well. The meat from Dulock is really, really good, and their customer service is top notch. It is also very expensive; this stuff makes Whole Foods meat seem cheap. But we prefer to get superb quality locally raised meat from the neighborhood shop. We do sometimes get meat from elsewhere, but my feeling is that if it is too expensive we should just eat less meat.<br />
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<b>Recipe</b><br />
<ul>
<li>2300g pork shoulder</li>
<li>400g pork back fat</li>
<li>100g beef heart</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>40g kosher salt</li>
<li>1 tsp coarse black pepper</li>
<li>1 tsp dried tyme</li>
<li>1/4 tsp cayenne pepper</li>
<li>1/4c chopped fresh sage leaf</li>
<li>1 head garlic, skinned and minced</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>3/4 cup sweet cider</li>
<li>1/4 cup boiled cider</li>
</ul>
The day before sausaging I defrosted the heart and back fat in the fridge. On sausage day I put them back in the freezer to chill along with the chunk of pork shoulder. When they were stiff but not frozen I took them out and cut them into ~15mm cubes. These were mixed up with the spices and put back in the fridge for a couple hours. Meanwhile the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/04/enterprise-5-antique-meat-grinder.html">enterprise #5 grinder</a> and a catch pan were put in the freezer to chill. <br />
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We set up the grinder and ran all the meats and spices through the 5mm die and returned the mix to the fridge.</div>
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Last time I made breakfast sausage I used hard cider for the binding liquid, but this time I wanted to boost the sweetness and make it more attractive to the kids, so I used a cup of sweet cider from our <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/10/cider-12-winter-wheat-from-orchard-and.html">fall cider run</a> (defrosted the day before).<br />
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The meat and cider was mixed with the paddle in the kitchenaid for about a minute, </div>
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then I loaded it into a heavy duty plastic bag, which in turn was put into the hopper of the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/02/enterprise-25-antique-iron-sausage.html">Enterprise stuffer</a>. The corner of the bag was pulled out the exit port at the bottom of the stuffer and snipped off. </div>
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I tried to push the meat down and work out major air pockets with a wood spoon, then folded the top of the bag over and readied the stuffer. <br />
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Earlier I had put a few hanks of pretubed 18/20mm sheep casing I had bought from <a href="http://www.makincasing.com/">Syracuse Casing</a> to soak in warm water. Although it seemed like 18/20mm casing should fit on my LEM 606B tube (nominally 19mm diameter), it was too tight to load. So I went down to the LEM 606A tube, which was way too small. But this turned out to not be an issue since the filling could easily expand to fill the casing after exiting the stuffer delivery tube. I think it did make stuffing a little more tricky since it was harder to strike the balance between overstuffing and understuffing than it might have been with a right sized tube.</div>
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The sausages came out a nice diameter. In the sections which were filled too much, the casing would rupture when we twisted it to make links. I don't recall this being an issue with the hog casing; maybe sheep is weaker than hog? Or the smaller diameter is thinner? In any case we ended up with some busted links. But these are fine to cook and eat, so no big deal.<br />
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This time we mostly froze the links on a cookie sheet before bagging and vac sealing them. In this way, the sausages were prevented from squishing into an unappetizing meat pile when vac sealing, which is what happens if you vac seal them at room temp.</div>
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With ~3kg of meat, we had too much to load into the stuffer all at once. But barely too much. It would have been more efficient to only have 2.5kg and load the stuffer once, or 4+kg for two loads. <br />
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A pleasant sausage experience, and the results are delicious. No complaints from the kids this time, though I think they still like the sugary Applegate sausages better!</div>
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-73247451245623956962017-02-01T09:19:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:26:42.414-07:00Urban Micro-Orchard Year 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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2016 saw the third growing season for our espalier micro-orchard project. Some things are going easier than I thought, like training to the trellis, pruning, and grafting, while other unexpected challenges have emerged. Things are shaping up well, and I can see the way to a wonderful established planting. But it is going to be a longer and more winding path I had originally thought!<br />
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<b>Pruning</b><br />
Pruning began in February as I clipped a few pieces to send to scion seekers from GrowingFruit.org. The rest of the pruning was done in March, after giving my Bahco pruners a freshen up on the sharpening stones.<br />
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There really wasn't much to prune. I think with espalier if you are keeping up with pinching and strapping during the growing season, there just isn't that much wood that needs cutting when dormant. Here is what I did:<br />
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- slightly head back rungs which were not grown out all the way, to stimulate growth<br />
- even up rungs that were uneven in growth from last season<br />
- headed off leaders where I wanted to induce branching at a new rung level<br />
- thin out side branches that were too extensive or thick, particularly on the bottom two rungs and near the leader<br />
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<b>Planting/Repair</b><br />
The <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/01/urban-micro-orchard-year-2.html">previous season</a> I made a bad mistake by painting undiluted pure neem oil on the trunks of the trees in high summer. This was particularly toxic to the G.11 interstem pieces the orchard was hosting; the other rootstocks and all the scions seemed unaffected. The middle tree, at position #4 was girdled by bark death on the G.11 piece and quickly crashed in August. We dug this tree out in spring and replaced it with a King David on G.222 from Cummins, which is barely visible in the below picture behind the tulips.<br />
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Pretty much all the south side bark on the G.11 piece of the Ashmead's Kernel at #6 was killed too, and this tree has been growing sluggishly. To help it along and maybe give it some extra vigor, I planted a piece of G.30 rootstock right next to it and tried to attach it as an inarch graft to the scion above the interstem. We'll see how that works out.<br />
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We also added two apricots this year down at the lawn level, destined for stand alone growth rather than espalier. Espalier is trickier with stone fruit because you have to continually let new wood grow to get fruit. I got Tomcot on Citation from Bay Laurel, which arrived very early in the season bare root with most of the roots chopped off. Child 3 and I planted it in an area next to the compost we had prepared the previous fall.<br />
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The other apricot was Hargrand on Pumiselect from Cummins. Both trees grew a ton, probably about a meter, though they had a tendency to wilt without daily watering in the hottest part of the summer. Hopefully they will send some better roots down as time goes on. It would be awesome if we got fruit in 2017, but my experience with apples has led me to temper my expectations.<br />
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I mulched them with 99.99999% pure solar grade silicon chip, which was getting tossed from work.<br />
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Looks cool, though I think the bigger #2 chipped Seimens rod would make better mulch. I also planted chives, <a href="http://gardenplugs.com/cultivars/yellow-wonder/">Yellow Wonder alpine strawberries</a>, and <a href="https://onegreenworld.com/product-category/berries/arctic-raspberry/">arctic raspberries</a> in the bed with the trees. Here are the trees as they were leafing out.<br />
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Here is the Tomcot in the fall.<br />
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And the Hargrand, getting mauled by runaway morning glory vines on the left of the tomato trellis<br />
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Chives and alpine strawberries did well, but the raspberries all died which is too bad since they sounded like a good plant to put around the yard. Anyone grown those successfully?<br />
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<b>Grafting</b><br />
This was the first season of topworking new varieties onto the trees. Very exciting! <br />
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I had done a handful of grafts on wild trees along the bikepath to work the previous two springs in an attempt to learn the skill. This was certainly instructive and gave me some hands on experience, as well as time to see what worked and what didn't. I also enjoy following the <a href="http://growingfruit.org/">GrowingFruit.org forum</a>, which has had a few excellent threads on grafting with great advice from a wide variety of people about what works for them.<br />
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In 2016 I did 13 grafts in the orchard, mostly clefts but a few whip and tongue. All of them took, though some met their end later by way of fireblight.<br />
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Here is what I have to say based on my limited experience about getting good grafts. Generally, think about getting good, compressed cambium contact between scion and stock, keeping foreign material and water out of the graft, and keeping the scion from drying out while the graft is healing. Some tips that have helped me:<br />
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<ul>
<li>wrap scion with parafilm before cutting/shaping</li>
<li>seal the tip of the scion wood, either ahead of time or after grafting. I've using parafilm but I think a dab of some kind of sealer might be better and easier</li>
<li>cut scion back to two or three buds. The more wood you have out there the more moisture has to transport through the healing graft to keep it alive. You are only going to keep one bud of growth anyway, so keeping two or three gives you plenty to work with.</li>
<li>use electrical splice tape, either straight or on top of an initial wrap of parafilm. This stuff is amazing for grafting; you can get loads of compression on the graft very easily, and it comes off without peeling the bark later in the season</li>
<li>harvest scion when fully dormant (but not TOO early since it will then spend a long time in the fridge getting moldy), store well</li>
<li>wait until stock is waking up and showing green before grafting</li>
<li>take off black tape later in the season by slitting gently with a razor and unwrapping. Don't bother taking off parafilm, it will come off on it's own and won't hurt the tree.</li>
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I had never done clefts before, but I think they are if anything easier than whip and tongue, especially if the stock and scion are different diameters. This didn't seem likely to be the case for me, since I'm grafting onto 1-2 year wood that should be similar in size to typical scion. But scion is quite different in size depending on who cut it and what the variety is. For instance, Redfield scion I got from Fedco the other year to put on wild trees was probably no more than 4mm in diameter. But the Bramley I got this year from Northeast Cider Supply was at least 10mm. I've since heard Redfield has a thin and twiggy habit. If I cut a scion from my Sweet Sixteen, it would be very thick since all the wood is that way on that particular tree.<br />
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After posting some pics of my cleft grafts on GrowingFruit, I got some <a href="http://growingfruit.org/t/espalier-apple-trees-rework-2016-updates/5098/31">great feedback</a> that I should push the scion to or even what seems like slightly past the outer diameter of the stock to get cambium alignment. Someone else added that a very slight angular misalignment could give you a better chance of getting at least some cambium contact. After that I went and unwrapped all my cleft grafts and reset about half of them.<br />
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If you have the opportunity and interest, I highly recommend trying your hand at grafting apples. It is so cool that it works at all and satisfying to see one of your grafts succeed and start growing out. There is almost nothing easier to graft than apples, so it is a good place to start. <br />
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The varieties I put on this year:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Indian Point Russet - Probable seedling by Indian Point near Georgetown Island, ME. The previous fall, we had noticed how delicious and clean the fruit was which Ben's parents had gathered from this feral tree for our annual cidering. Makes a smallish russet with very white flesh. Ben has already grafted this into some trees at his place near Portland. He very obligingly sent me a bundle of sticks when I asked if I could get hold of some scion.</li>
<li>Centennial</li>
<li>Bramley's Seedling</li>
<li>Callville Blanc d'Hiver (later lost to fireblight)</li>
<li>Chestnut</li>
<li>Karmijn de Sonnaville (later lost to fireblight)</li>
</ul>
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<b>Growth and Training</b><br />
Most mornings before work I walk by the trees with a roll of plant velcro in my pocket. I pinch side shoots at 2-3 buds up and secure growth along the trellis with the velcro, leaving the last 15-20cm free to curve up in its natural way. I also fret about aphids and pick a few weeds, maybe water any seedlings that need it.<br />
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A good technique to encourage a slow or missing rung is notching. 5-10mm directly above the area needing a boost on the leader, I notch out about 1mm of cambium 20-30% around. <a href="http://growingfruit.org/t/how-many-of-you-use-the-notching-technique-to-encourage-fruiting/4032">Here is a good thread</a> on the notching technique at GrowingFruit. I believe it has helped me in two cases where I was missing a rung but didn't want to cut back the leader to that level.<br />
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The trees which bloomed this year were lovely in May. First below is Roxbury Russet, with a piece of Indian Point Russet grafted on the leader at the top.<br />
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Here is Gold Rush, another prolific bloomer.<br />
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Sweet Sixteen and Tydeman's Late Orange have yet to bloom; hopefully next year. Probably not a coincidence these are on G.30 roots instead of interstems like the others. Opalescent put out a few flowers and set some fruit (it was on interstem B.9/B.118), but was later completely wiped out by fireblight before I could taste one of the apples.<br />
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Ashmead's tried to set a ton of fruit, but this tree is struggling and not too vigorous so I took it all off.<br />
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I allowed Roxbury and Gold Rush to keep one apple per rung off the leader, if it was more than 1/2 grown out. Probably about 20 apples made it to fall, though we were not able to pick a single one fully ripe.<br />
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Growth in the early season was steady, and I spent 6-8 weeks actively strapping down or pinching new growth. Grafts all grew out nicely.<br />
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<b>Microscopic Pests</b><br />
Not much Cedar Apple Rust (CAR) this year on my trees. I took this cool photo of a CAR gall on a cedar tree in May at Habitat in Belmont.<br />
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This was my first year to experience FIREBLIGHT. I don't recommend it.<br />
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I hadn't paid all that much attention to this issue since I had got the sense it wasn't that big a deal in New England. I'm pretty sure it came in on scion I grafted in at the end of April. As I told Becky, "I traded genetic material with someone I met on the internet and contracted a horrible disease! My limb is wilting, cankered, and leaking fluid!". My apple limb, ok?!<br />
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No sign of trouble until June, when I noticed one of my new grafts suddenly started wilting.<br />
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At first I thought maybe the graft failed, but it had been growing so well up to that point and was already pretty far grown out. The graft union looked ok. Then another new graft and an old rung which had been severely aphid munched in spring started showing the same effect on my Opalescent tree.<br />
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Then I noticed dark splotchy sections of wood leaking fluid on the Opalescent.<br />
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The infection was spreading. I did some research and posted pics on a forum. Quickly an answer came back that it looked like the shoot version of fireblight.<br />
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At this point, there is not much to do other than amputate or see if the tree recovers on its own. I was afraid of the infection spreading to the other trees, so I opted for amputation.<br />
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Which was painful psychologically since the Opalescent was among the furthest along and best looking trees in the lineup, as well as carrying two grafts I wanted to keep. It had also set fruit for the first time this year and I wanted to taste it.<br />
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I took it down to one last rung which had no signs of infection, hoping to keep the roots alive enough to graft onto the next season and hoping to eat that one apple you can see to the left of the big flowering leek.<br />
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But alas, it succumbed to the infection later in the season and had to go.<br />
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So this tree will get dug up and replaced in spring. Opalescent is described in at least one source as being Highly susceptible to fireblight. In future I will give more thought to not choosing varieties with that characteristic.<br />
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While losing a tree is tough to bear, it isn't as bad as I might have thought. As time goes on my ideas about which varieties I want and which do well in my location evolve, and a dead tree represents a chance to start fresh with a new collection of ideas. It is also easier to stomach losing one tree if you have others that are doing well.<br />
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<b>Macroscopic Pests</b><br />
Aphids were very heavy in the latter part of spring. I sprayed neem a few times, but the aphids would be back within a day or two. We brought in a tin of ladybugs on two occasions but that didn't have much effect. Next season I'll just keep soapy water in the sprayer and hit them every few days. I think putting tanglefoot or similar ant blocker around the trunk of the trees would not be effective because the trees are touching the trellis all over and it would be annoying to tanglefoot all the places the trellis touches the fence. Here are some aphids on a nearby lovage plant.<br />
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The other major pest I had this year was squirrels. Roxbury Russet and especially Gold Rush put on a lot of fruit. But the squirrels would mar the fruit with scrapes and bites and knock it off the tree long before it was fully ripe. Within hours of hitting the ground, a squirrel damaged apple would be covered in ants and slugs.<br />
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I did wash off and eat a few of these, but it is hard to get excited about being third in line to eat under ripe fruit after squirrels, slugs, and ants have had their way with it.<br />
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Tried putting some poly mesh bags around the last 6 apples on GoldRush, which did seem to keep the squirrels off for a few weeks. But then they figured it out and ravished all the remaining fruit on the same day.<br />
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The tree rats do not confine their mischief to the apples unfortunately; they also dig up anything I plant in spring whether seed or seedling, dig up garlic I plant in fall, and destroy sunflower heads if I grow them. So I've started a program to reduce the local squirrel population by mechanical means. I don't imagine this will eliminate them altogether because there is an essentially infinite supply, but if I can create a sort of local squirrel sink the lower concentration of squirrels in my yard will surely benefit my garden.<br />
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<b>General Tree Health</b><br />
In year 2, I sprayed the Michael Phillips holistic orchard spray probably 6-8 times but this year my enthusiasm for spraying had flagged so I only did it a couple times. Would my fireblight outbreak have been less bad if I had sprayed more? Impossible to say, but I feel more motivated to keep up with sprays next year. <br />
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The trees toward the west side of the yard continue to do better than those on the east. They are more resilient to stresses like aphids and fireblight, grow more vigorously, and have fruited sooner. It is difficult to attribute these observations entirely to position because they are all a different mix of variety and rootstock. But it reinforces a trend seen with other types of plants across the yard too. Next year I really want to get my irrigation hooked up so I can see if some extra water on a regular basis would improve things for the east side.<br />
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<b>Companion Plants</b><br />
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As is typical in the garden, it seems rare that a perennial is doing exactly as good as I want it to do. Plants either do too well and expand too much or spread themselves around with seed, or else they are languishing. Why can't plants be sensible and just grow exactly as much as I want them to?<br />
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The bulbs in spring are a wonderful bit of color after the drabness of winter. Crocuses first<br />
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Then tulips, then irises and oriental poppies<br />
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Sage and the oak and olive leaf sylvetta arugula are too big and aggressive. I cut them down to the ground twice a year, but they come back strong. We don't use more than a handful of sage in the year (for homemade breakfast sausage), and while we do eat some of the arugula Becky does not like it much. It has a much stronger flavor than annual arugula and is more work to pick and get ready to eat because the leaves are smaller and stems woodier. I like it as a minority component in salad.<br />
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In the above pic, besides the rampant arugula and sage, you can see green onions, horseradish, patty pan squash, and the limb of Sweet Sixteen I had to cut off due to blight. On the left is asparagus and corn. The tree with all the apples is GoldRush.<br />
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Egyptian onions are going great, though they tend to grow too high and interfere with the first rung of the espaliers. But they look cool, and we chop them down to eat mercilessly in the spring. They are not great later in the season, but by then the regular green onions are ready for eating. <br />
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I have a mix of 3-4 types of green onions including Ishikura, Guardsman, and Evergreen. They don't spread quickly like the egyptian onions and are a short lived perennial. As a consequence they are not as widespread or as dense as I'd like. But we cut and eat them from summer through fall after the egyptians are too big and hard.<br />
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We've developed a way of eating armfuls of green and egyptian onions that is simply the bomb<br />
<ul>
<li>cut the thick parts near the base into 5cm chunks</li>
<li>cut green leaves into 20cm chunks</li>
<li>separate out wilted parts, bugs, etc</li>
<li>coat everything in olive oil, then some salt, arrange in a monolayer</li>
<li>roast on cookie sheets in the oven at 200C for about 15 minutes, then turn down to 160C for about another 20-40 minutes. You want the green leaves to get completely desiccated and crunchy but without burning to black. As they finish up, take the fully hard ones off and leave the soft ones to cook a little more, checking in about every 5-10 minutes. The leaves condense greatly, so don't over salt them at the beginning. They are almost like chips now; they taste like sour cream & onion pringles but better</li>
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Here is a picture of a typical onion roast day, with some sea kale in the other pan<br />
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Thick parts can cook at 200C the whole time for a more roasty product, or get turned down with the leaves to make things easy. Child 1 likes these "soft" onions the best. Child 2 loves the "hard" onions made from the leaves. The sea kale turned into kale chips.<br />
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We also do this with leaves from leeks and regular onions picked before the leaves die.<br />
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Chives and Garlic Chives are kicking along but not excelling toward the east side of the orchard. You know conditions are rough when chives are struggling. My favorite use for chives is to put a huge pile on top of homemade pizza, so they get roasted and burned at the edges while the pizza cooks. I made a jar of kimchi with mostly garlic chives last summer, and I'd like to do that again. The garlic chives from the local asian stores are so much bigger and more tender than mine, but our chives are better than store chives (and far cheaper).<br />
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I divided the Sorrel this year so maybe next year there will be enough to eat more of it. It makes pretty good salad when mixed with other greens.<br />
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This spring I pulled up the rest of the Salad Burnet; while it's flavor is ok (a little like cucumber, as billed in the seed catalogs), it is too hard to pick the quarter size leaves in enough quantity to make an impact on a salad. I'd rather have more green onions.<br />
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Child 1 had a little rosemary which is still alive out there in January since our winter has been mild. Here she is eating a cupcake at her birthday party with a friend in the fall, with the new King David tree and her rosemary in the background.<br />
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Another troublesome companion has been horseradish. I tried to move it last year, and put cardboard and mulch over top of where it used to be in the orchard. Midway through the season, new shoots came blasting up through the cardboard and refused to be stifled (you can see it coming up to the right in the above picture). I took to cutting it to the ground every week or two and eating the greens. They are on the bitter side for me, but edible certainly. I'd rather eat kale, but there is something to be said for a perennial green which is nearly impossible to kill and which you can cut almost weekly.<br />
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Tried to plant leeks from seed in the east half of the bed with an eye towards perennializing some, but they mostly dwindled as the summer got hot. There were a couple that overwintered from the previous year, but they died after flowering.<br />
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This season and last I've grown squash and beans up bamboo poles leaning against the top trellis wire in 4 places between apple trees. Man have we got squash vine borer wicked bad! I planted two patty pan squash that got off to a great start but got wrecked by vine borers along with all the other <i>pepo </i>and <i>maxima </i>curcubits in the yard. One of them limped along to make a couple squash, but most then rotted at the blossom end for an unknown reason.<br />
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Some purple pole beans got a great start and I picked from them once, but then the leaves were skeletonized over night by some kind of insect.<br />
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<b>Plans for Next Season</b><br />
First order of business will be to plant a Redfield on G.935 from Cummins at position #5, and to dormant prune the other trees. Next, I'll graft on four new varieties to the other trees. Here is my current plan for the orchard. Black is mostly grown out rungs, gray has yet to grow out, red is up next for grafting, blue is for grafting in some future season.<br />
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<td align="center" height="19">Tree #</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>1</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="2" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>2</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="3" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>3</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="4" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>4</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="5" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>5</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="6" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>6</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="7" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000;"><b>7</b></td>
</tr>
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<td align="center" height="19" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;">Rung #</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><br /></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Centennial</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><br /></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Wickson</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><br /></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #6666ff;">Knobbed</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000;"><br /></td>
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<td align="center" height="19" sdnum="1033;" sdval="5" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">5</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">IPR</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Centennial</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">RdR</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Wickson</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Hoople's</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Chestnut</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Rubinette</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19" sdnum="1033;" sdval="4" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">4</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">IPR</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Gold Rush</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">RdR</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #6666ff;">Wickson</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #6666ff;">Hoople's</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Chestnut</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Rubinette</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19" sdnum="1033;" sdval="3" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">3</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Rox.Russ</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Gold Rush</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Bramley</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #6666ff;">Calville</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Gold Rush</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Pit.Pineapple</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Rubinette</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19" sdnum="1033;" sdval="2" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">2</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Rox.Russ</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Gold Rush</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Sweet 16</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">King David</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #6666ff;">Gold Rush</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Ashmead's</td>
<td align="center" style="border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">KdS</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">1</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Rox.Russ</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Gold Rush</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Sweet 16</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">King David</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">Redfield</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">Ashmead's</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">TLO</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19">Stem/Root</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G11/M111</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G11/M111</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G30</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G222</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;"><span style="color: grey;">G935</span></td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G11/M111</td>
<td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000;">G30</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" height="19">Inarch</td>
<td align="center"><span style="color: grey;"> +G935</span></td>
<td align="center"><span style="color: grey;"> +G935</span></td>
<td align="left"><br /></td>
<td align="left"><br /></td>
<td align="left"><br /></td>
<td align="center">+G30</td>
<td align="left"><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
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IPR - Indian Point Russet<br />
RdR - Reine des Reinnettes<br />
KdS - Karmijn de Sonnaville<br />
TLO - Tydeman's Late Orange<br />
<br />
Its fun to revise this plan continuously as I read about yet more varieties I can't live without. I do wish I had more space. But what I have is plenty to keep me busy, and if I could figure out how to be a better gardener I could get lots more food from the space I have. You can see I've taken advantage of the sort of 1/3 rung available at the top of the chevron trees at positions #2,4, and 6 to add a little bit of yet more varieties. While allowing asymmetric rungs as far as variety goes could increase the number available for graft positions, I think keeping the same variety on either side will be easier.<br />
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I've been thinking about inarching a chunk of G.935 into the other interstems damaged by neem year before last, like I did for the Ashmead's. I think I'll take all the flowers off Ashmead's and put some blood meal down to try to encourage it to grow more.<br />
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The sage will get chopped out, a new layer of compost put down, and salt marsh hay put on top. I'd really like to get my drip irrigation system put together too.<br />
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I want to try to grow an <a href="http://www.rareseeds.com/orangeglo-watermelon/?F_Keyword=orangeglo">Orangeglo</a> watermelon and <a href="http://www.rareseeds.com/zucchino-rampicante-squash/?F_Keyword=rampicante">Zucchino Rampicante</a> squash (both of which should be resistant to borers). Maybe I'll try sending them up the bamboo poles in the orchard. The pole beans worked out well the year before last so I'll do some of those on the poles too.<br />
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I will do a dormant spray of copper to try to tamp down any fireblight still around from last year, and I also plan on spraying Serenade. Copper is OMRI compliant, but I don't especially want to spray it unless I feel I really need to. Serenade I don't mind spraying if it is helpful since it is pretty harmless as well as OMRI. Also going to try out Serenade for control of powdery mildew on curcubits, which is my second worst problem with that plant family (after squash vine borer).<br />
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After the difficulties of last year, I'll probably return to spraying the Michael Phillips organic orchard brew more often. Fedco has a blurb about it on page 21 of their <a href="https://fedcoseeds.com/forms/organic_growers_catalog_2017_highres.pdf">Organic Growers Supply pdf catalog</a> (looks like pg 137 of the paper catalog, thanks for the tip Ben). They are hot on a different oil to supplement neem called Karanja. How do we know if this stuff actually works?? Well, I'm going to spray it anyhow.<br />
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Last season I bought a new backpack sprayer. The one I had was 16L and pretty cumbersome. I don't have much to spray, so I thought a really well made one with smaller capacity would make the experience better. This led me to a Birchmeier Flox 10L, which was really expensive but seems nicely made and has been easier to wrangle the couple times I've used it so far. It is swiss made, has a stainless frame, and an external pump.<br />
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Plus, when I bite into that slug eaten, squirrel ravaged, underripe GoldRush next fall, I want to know it cost me dearly.<br />
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So here is what I'm planning on loading up with for the coming season. I keep a 1/8 cup measure with my sprayer supplies, so recipe is in increments of that measure:<br />
<ul>
<li>1x Neem oil</li>
<li>1/2x Karanja oil</li>
<li>dash (1/2 tsp) Dr. Bronner's liquid soap</li>
<li>2x molasses</li>
<li>4x liquid fish</li>
<li>1x liquid kelp</li>
<li>2x EM-1</li>
<li>8L warm water</li>
</ul>
This will get sprayed at green tip, pink tip, petal fall, 1-2 weeks after petal fall, and after half the leaves have fallen post-harvest (minus kelp). During bloom I'll spray Serenade. Including the copper, that is 7 sprays! Geez, I thought growing fruit was going to be easier :)Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-8755294715651560172016-12-12T18:44:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:22:53.302-07:00New bunny suit for Old Bunny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1y_oUGkGNbb7V1oEMPNKf-16G5Q183Ew_WCsZUwJ815kn1CD5YtdDKJHvYCHK_hRUH_g-XkH9C8hU29-s1E4awycimSTvcTFWArtpOqlRpNlsvT3Ywr6KYFB_RRuFQ7h8176NAysVK7mf/s1600/IMG_2367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1y_oUGkGNbb7V1oEMPNKf-16G5Q183Ew_WCsZUwJ815kn1CD5YtdDKJHvYCHK_hRUH_g-XkH9C8hU29-s1E4awycimSTvcTFWArtpOqlRpNlsvT3Ywr6KYFB_RRuFQ7h8176NAysVK7mf/s640/IMG_2367.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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I've been continuing to make <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/09/muslin-bunnies.html">these bunnies</a> as baby gifts these last few years, never actually catching up with how many I'd like to make. Meanwhile, Child 1 still keeps her bunny (the first I made, in 2010) as her favorite, and it has gotten pretty ragged looking. This bunny has been slept with thousands of times, and has soaked up an ocean of tears (plus some drool and a little blood). It has been on trips in suitcases, on planes, and in the car. The ears were near to falling off completely, and the rest of the outer fabric had degraded to a fragile spider web like layer. The ones I've been making since the first one have used a double layer of muslin for the outer shell to help with durability and to prevent wool fibers from escaping.<br />
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I proposed making her a new one, but she was adamant in her desire to not retire her old one. So we came up with a scheme for preserving the old bunny but protecting it from further decline while still keeping it in constant use. A bunny suit!<br />
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The idea was to make a new bunny, somewhat bigger than the old one, then stuff it with the <i>old</i> bunny rather than new wool fiber. Child 1 still wanted the chance to visit with the original, so she asked for a zipper in the side. <br />
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She wanted the embroidery on the outside to be just like the first model, which was easily done. <br />
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The new tail (cut from an Ikea sheepskin rug) is fluffy again; the old one had withered to a low bit of wooly scrub.<br />
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I started this project in the spring, but didn't finish it until fall. I had put a few patches on Old Bunny to keep it from coming apart inside the bunny suit, and also took the opportunity to push in a bit of extra wool since the original had been compacted considerably with use..<br />
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The sewing machine is now up in a different room, looking out a window on a scenic view of the garden. And a parking lot; this is the city after all. You get a great view of my two dead apple trees in the back fence espalier from here, and can better appreciate how the trees on the right half are struggling for some unknown reason. Ah well, one project at a time!<br />
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The bunny suit looks great, although it is a little on the loose side. It is probably good I didn't make it any tighter since it was already tricky to get Old Bunny in the zipper hole without causing its fragile fabric to come apart wholesale.<br />
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Becky thinks it is a little creepy, having the old bunny lurking inside. As if the old bunny rejuvenated itself by taking the skin of a young bunny. But Child 1 is extremely pleased with the outcome, and I think the solution was rather clever.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-3186236977900938192016-10-25T18:43:00.003-07:002020-06-23T16:13:49.677-07:00Cider 12 - Winter wheat from the orchard and a bicycle powered apple washer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Another great year of cidering at Five Islands, Maine with a good group of people, excellent weather, and delicious food.<br />
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A complementary writeup and different set of photos can be found at <a href="https://fiveislandsorchard.wordpress.com/">Ben's blog</a>.<br />
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We arranged for our usual two bins of mixed seconds from Autumn Hills in Groton. Ben and I spent a couple pleasant hours a week and a half before cider at the AH orchard transferring apples from their bins to ours and chatting with Ann and Scott. Many local orchards had little fruit this year due to a late freeze. Autumn Hills escaped the worst of it though and had plenty of apples. I've noticed a lot of smaller apples this year too – possibly a result of drought?</div>
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I also picked up an extra two bushels of seconds for my friend from work, Jim. Here he is strapping a bushel box to his bike, with some sweet potato greens on top which we had just picked in the garden.</div>
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Ben got a bin of mixed Yarlington and Dabinett from Poverty Lane in NH, and yet another bin from Brackett's in Maine. So we had a nice amount of feedstock. <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/cider-11-blockbuster-year-for-apples.html">Last year</a> we had a ton of extra apples picked from wild trees by Ben's parents and brought in by cider participants. The abundance was awesome, but strained our capabilities and meant that Saturday was not done until very late and there was more to wrap up on Sunday. Four bins makes plenty of cider but is a better match to the throughput of the equipment and the hands to run it.<br />
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I meant to pick one of my five Goldrush apples still hanging on my little tree in my backyard in Somerville to bring as a symbolic contribution, but I forgot.</div>
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I took friday off work and spent a few hours fitting up our new huge cartop carrier and packing a large amount of stuff into a small space. Luckily Ned volunteered to transport four corny kegs in his spacious Prius trunk.</div>
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We arrived in Five Islands at the end of the day and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the cove from the lower cabin. </div>
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Soon we were eating burritos with some early arrivals, and Ben led a memorable viking fire barge effort.<br />
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Next morning saw the final fitting out of the first attempt at a bike powered apple washer. </div>
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Washing has been our bottleneck step for these last few years, and consumes a lot of labor. It is not especially fun either, since your hands get cold and your clothes wet, so it has been at the top of the list to do something about for a while. The Mainers had knocked together an inclined piece of plastic culvert pipe running on rollerblade wheels with a belt drive from a bike. </div>
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Saturday saw the pipe lined with astroturf and some stationary wooden features arranged to direct the apples while traveling through the apparatus. A hose was rigged to lightly spray water into the upper end. </div>
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A few adjustments were made throughout the day and while I wasn't involved much it seemed like this new addition made a significant impact toward reducing drudgery and increasing throughput. Here is a little video. </div>
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Ben had grown some Warthog winter wheat in between rows in the orchard, and it actually made an impressive amount of grain. Emily, Ben, Beth and some helpers figured out how to thresh it with a weedwhacker in a plastic barrel and winnow with window fans. </div>
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The effective and well-built Country Living grain mill first used last year made another appearance, but built into a cute little pedal stand by Kelsey and her father in law. </div>
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The new stand surely stores better and is easier to transport than the huge bike power stand it was on last year. But it was not as ergonomic to use. We put the flywheel back on and adjusted the gearing a bit, which got us to an ok place for the day's grinding needs. I think perhaps with a bigger flywheel and the right seat, probably anchored to the grinding stand, it could be quite good. Normally you probably don't need to grind as much grain at a time as we wanted to on Saturday, so a drop in efficiency and ease of use in exchange for compact storage size could be a good tradeoff. </div>
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A rotation of pedalers ground up enough wheat to make Ned's apple fritters, cornbread (1/3 wheat) and 6 trays of apple crisp for dinner, plus pancakes for sunday morning. We switched to the corn screw feeder on the mill and ground up 1800g of corn, about half of which was dried down sweet corn from the Stroudwater garden. The cornbread was very tasty this year (recipe listed in <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/cider-11-blockbuster-year-for-apples.html">last year's writeup</a>, but sugar reduced to 200g), so I think using dried sweet corn is a fine thing to do for cornmeal. It was much lower density than the boughten dent corn I brought for grinding, so I'm not sure how it would turn out if used exclusively. I'm sure the fresh ground and ultra-local wheat added to the flavor.<br />
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Becky made a huge pot of veg chili, some leftovers of which we had to push off on the locals on Sunday to reduce the chance of chili spill accident while driving the pot back to Somerville. <br />
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We made up 6 trays of apple crisp using a mix of Calville Blanc d'Hiver from Poverty Lane and some apples from my coworker's tree she donated to the cause, which I suspect to be Newtown Pippin. The Calvilles this year were truly fine in flavor, and it is such a pretty looking apple with it's pronounced and distinctive ribbing. Those ridges do make it more troublesome to peel however!<br />
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Emily and Child 3 helped prep the apples, as shown at the top of the post. About a 20L pail full.<br />
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Here is the stack of butter Becky and I used to cook dinner, warming up on some boards. Healthy country living, eh?! Well, truthfully we don't confine the consumption of outlandish amounts of butter to our trip to Maine…<br />
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Our kids had lots of fun running around left up to their own devices. They have hung out with the other kids at this cider event enough times that they get over the awkwardness faster than they used to and get on to having a good time more easily. Some of the activities I saw the pack of younguns engaged in:<br />
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- sledding on cardboard and rolling down a big dirt mound<br />
- putting random foods into the hot oil from the apple fritters, including watermelon, cookies, etc.<br />
- making voodoo dolls from sticks and apples and throwing them in the fire<br />
- stick fights<br />
- wheelbarrow rides<br />
- helping run cider, grain production, and dinner<br />
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Only minor injuries too, so let's count that as a success.<br />
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Duane from <a href="http://mainelydadswintercoat.blogspot.com/">Japanese Pattern Challenge</a> dropped by for a little bit. He lives in the neighborhood and I thought it would be fun to meet so I invited him to come over on Saturday. It was cool to meet this talented hobbyist garment maker and craftsman; I can only aspire to get as good as he is at making clothing for oneself. We also chatted briefly about his ongoing project to make a wooden sailboat, which looks amazing so far. Duane brought a box of apples and left with a little cider.<br />
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Cidering itself went smoothly; very few equipment issues, and enough people have been to the event enough times that there are many folks around who generally know what should happen and can shepherd things along and keep the process running. We are developing competence as a group!<br />
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We got new shirts this year, courtesy once again of the generous Jones family, this time in chocolate brown with white ink. We re-used the chainring/apple drawing from cider 10 because no one felt they had it in them to beat it. New text and layout was done, with the title of this year's event settled as “dry spell”, both for the historic drought in New England and for the residual sugar content of the hard cider we ferment from the year's efforts. We added a tribute to Ben's grandfather, who passed away this year, and without whom our cider event would certainly never have developed in the wonderful way it has.<br />
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Some shirts were ordered undyed with black printing, and were layered inside press cloths during loading of pomace. These took a good amount of color, but after a rinse off on Sunday we decided they should go for another year of treatment to gain a darker ciderish hue. <br />
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I heard reports that some of the lighter press cloths in the rotation had blown out. I didn't see them myself but there was at least one cloth made of 10oz canvas in there. Looks like 12oz at least is recommended for single layer use. I'll have to make up a few more for next year.<br />
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There was enough time on Saturday late afternoon after all the apples were run to start cleaning up and putting things away.<br />
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A big bonfire was lit in half of an old oiltank, and a hollow pine log was modified by chainsaw to be an impressive flaming torch.<br />
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We brought home plenty of cider for drinking fresh and fermenting.<br />
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I'd like to make some more boiled cider syrup, and possibly get around to doing apple cider vinegar this year.<br />
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Thanks to everyone who contributed!<br />
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-78005088692339283912016-05-04T17:55:00.001-07:002020-06-23T16:13:50.272-07:00A Quick and Basic Frame Saw<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I bought some rough cut green oak from a local supplier early this spring, for making into some plant trellises and a little perch on a maple tree for the kids. Feeling that this by itself was not enough of a challenge apparently, I decided to try to do a bit of carving on the tops of the posts to make these installations more interesting.<br />
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Rather like when I tried to <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-contoured-hand-rail.html">carve the transition pieces</a> for the handrail on my back stairs, I quickly realized I am a terrible wood carver. When I'm trying to remove material, I'm constantly feeling like it is going poorly. I feel as clumsy as if I were trying to stack up marbles with chopsticks while wearing wool mittens. One thought that is difficult to banish is "If only I had a different tool this would be going better...".<br />
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With the handrail I ended up using a carving wheel on an angle grinder, but I wanted to try to stick with hand tools on this project. One issue was that the green oak in thick sections will quickly load up even a coarse coping saw blade. My <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shark-10-2730-Takumi-General-Carpentry/dp/B00006FRP6/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1460652023&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=shrak+ryoba">carpentry sized ryoba</a> does pretty well, but the blade is wide so it can't turn in a cut very much. A pruning saw does ok, but mine is not as sharp as it could be and the blade is still pretty wide.<br />
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I had the idea of using a bow saw type blade with gnarly teeth to do some of the rough material removal. Bahco/Sandvik makes some nice ones in 530mm length, available from Amazon. I bought <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bahco-23-21-Bowsaw-Blade-21-Inch/dp/B0001IX77E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460652059&sr=8-1&keywords=bahco+green+wood+bow+saw+blade">one for green wood</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bahco-51-21-Blade-21-Inch-Wood/dp/B0001IX72E/ref=pd_sim_sbs_200_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=214iLxp2fHL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0DW6B851TE250Z0SC0H2">one for dry wood</a>.<br />
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Now we just needed something to hold the blade and tension it. I sketched up a frame for the blade in Inkscape, printed the parts on large paper and cut them out with scissors to make templates. You can <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JHo9tm7cE7eWtZSGtKRFlMTHM/view?usp=sharing">download the SVG file here</a>.<br />
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Some well seasoned beech wood was pulled from my stash and chopped to length.<br />
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Marked around the template pieces.<br />
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Roughed the parts out with the bandsaw.<br />
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Sanded the cut edges, eased the corners with the router, then sanded the faces<br />
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I made some through mortises using forstner bits on the drill press<br />
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followed by some chisel work.<br />
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The matching tenons were done with a dozuki saw<br />
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and a chisel to finish things up and tune the fit.<br />
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The fit and quality of the mortises and tenons leaves something to be desired, and I had cut the center brace piece too short to be able to make the tenons come all the way out the far side of the end pieces.<br />
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I made the best of it and figured it would be ok. I beveled the inside edges of the exterior side of the mortises to come down to the meet the end of the tenons, which makes it <i>almost</i> look like I intended them to be short.<br />
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For the top tensioner, I used some stainless 8mm OD tubing I had sitting around, which took a nice internal thread for an M6 flat head stainless screw.<br />
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The blade is retained with some <a href="http://www.mcmaster.com/#90145a544/=11zao32">stainless dowel pins</a>, which fit snugly in cross drilled holes in the wood.<br />
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After some test fitting, I finished the three wood pieces with three coats of Waterlox.<br />
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The blade actually stretches more than I had anticipated and I had to cut the tension tube at the top a little shorter. Still could use more trimming in fact to get more tension, but the shorter it gets the more poorly the tenoned center brace fits the side pieces.<br />
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How is the performance? Well, I quickly determined having this saw is not making me better at carving. Ugh! But on the plus side I have a handsome homemade saw hung up in the shop, and Child 3 had fun doing the project with me.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-78665276968694050582016-04-11T09:29:00.001-07:002020-06-23T16:13:51.048-07:00Tapping the Urban Maple, and Boiled Cider<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last year, I read about tapping trees that are NOT sugar maple at the <a href="http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Lessons_learned_from_2015_tree_tapping/">blog of Anna Hess</a>, and I resolved to tap the handful of trees on our small city lot. We have two Sycamore Maples and two Norway Maples. I had no idea what to expect, but I thought it would be fun to try. The easiest way I could come up with to test the waters was a piece of metal tube stuck in a hole, with a length of tubing run down to a container sitting on the ground.<br />
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I bought a length of 3/8" stainless tube from <a href="http://www.mcmaster.com/#89895k737/=11vowxf">McMaster</a>, and bent and cut some sections using tools at work.<br />
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McMaster also supplied some <a href="http://www.mcmaster.com/#6516t27/=11voxbs">3/8" ID tygon tubing</a>. Probably cheaper to buy at the homebrew store, but I'm pretty lazy.<br />
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and for collection containers I used the rectangular plastic carboys I normally use but once a year to transport cider from Maine to Somerville.<br />
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In mid-February, daytime temps were (weirdly) already frequently above freezing, so I figured we better get on with the tapping even though it was much earlier than typical dates cited for the area online.<br />
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We drilled a hole maybe 60mm deep in the south face of each tree<br />
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Stuffed in the metal tubes,<br />
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dropped the carboy on the ground, and stuck the end of the tube into it.<br />
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Of course the next day there was high wind and it blew the empty carboys all over the yard!<br />
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I meant to tie them to the trees, but never got around to it. Once they get some sap in them they don't blow down as much.<br />
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We left the taps in for four or five weeks, during which time the sap never really ran all that heavy. We only got a significant quantity from our biggest sycamore maple, and a little from the smaller sycamore maple. The Norways put out close to zero. We sampled cold maple sap straight from the tree, which apparently is getting trendy as a health drink, in the same vein as coconut water. It tasted just like water.<br />
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Each saturday, we went outside and dumped the carboys into a big pot and slowly boiled down in the kitchen. It wasn't all that much sap (about 10L at most), so I didn't worry too much about putting the water into the air in the house or the gas I burned evaporating the water. Just cooked it on medium heat with the exhaust fan on low all day.<br />
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When it got down to a liter or so of liquid, I strained it through a fine stainless sieve into a small pot.<br />
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This was boiled down further until it looked thick enough, then I strained it through the seive lined with a piece of muslin.<br />
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The first week's sap cooked down into a whitish, light colored syrup which had a strange flavor.<br />
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The following weeks' sap cooked down to dark brown syrup with a closer to usual taste, but still quite different from regular maple syrup. I stupidly forgot about the last week's syrup while it was in final cookdown and I burned the crap out of it. Took forever to clean that pot. Oopsie.<br />
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If I hadn't burned the last week's charge, I think total volume of syrup would have been about 500ml, though I cooked it down a little too much so it is pretty thick. Still tastes weird. More just sugary, without that maple-ey flavor you expect in maple syrup. But with a little bit of a strange flavor that is hard to place.<br />
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We've eaten some, but no one particularly likes it. I've been using it to sweeten other things (e.g. whipped cream).<br />
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One minor issue in collection was that when the sap was running, a significant quantity would spill out from around the tubing. So maybe a tapered tap or tapered drill bit would help with sealing the tap better at the bark interface. We also got a lot of drowned ants in the carboys and tubes toward the end of our experiment. These come out easily if you pour through the fine seive going from carboy to pot.<br />
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So while yield was ok, the product itself wasn't worth the trouble. I think the sap to syrup ratio was about the 40:1 that is often quoted for maple. I doubt we will tap these trees again next year. They do an urban tapping and boil down at the nearby <a href="http://www.thegrowingcenter.org/">Growing Center in Somerville</a>, but I haven't tasted the output from it and I don't know what kind of trees they tap down there. My friend Ben's parents collect and process quite a bit of maple from trees around where they live in Five Islands, ME, and it turns out great.<br />
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<b>Apple Syrup</b><br />
For some years I've been meaning to try cooking down some of the sweet cider we make every year in Maine with a group of friends and acquaintances. I've bought plenty of Boiled Cider from <a href="http://www.woodscidermill.com/PRODUCTS.html">Wood's Cider Mill </a>in VT. They make a fantastic product, and I prefer it to maple on pancakes and waffles. It really boosts apple pie if you put some in the filling in place of sugar. Once I asked them by email what apples go into the product, and this is what they had to say:<br />
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<i>Holly- We usually use a large percentage of Macintosh. At least 2/3rds. Also might have some empire, golden delicious. macoun, possibly northern spy, pound sweet, a very few red delicious, and some wild apples. But mainly Macs for consistent flavor. What kinds do you grow? Graft on some Ashmeads Kernel if you like tart apples. Willis</i><br />
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The other week I fetched a few bottles of cider from the deep freeze for Child 3's birthday party, and brought up an extra 4L of cider to try boiling down. One of the great things about apple syrup is that you only need to reduce it 7:1 rather than 40:1 like maple. I bet you could can the syrup too, and thus keep it preserved in concentrated form on the shelf rather than taking up a bunch of freezer space.<br />
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With this first cider cookdown, I boiled it for some hours one afternoon until it looked thick enough. It was actually still pretty liquid, but you have to anticipate how much it will thicken on cooling. Well, it turns out I cooked it too far and it turned to a consistency thicker than honey in the fridge. But it is easy to spread with a knife on pancakes and tastes wonderful. From 4L of cider I filled up a half liter jar with syrup, with about a 1/5L extra which I traded for some homemade fermented kraut with my neighbor.<br />
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Compared to the maple, the apple syrup was much easier to make (once you have cider of course, as we nearly always do), and tasted great. We'll surely make more of this. Might be a good way to use up extra cider at our cider get-together if in future we have another <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/cider-11-blockbuster-year-for-apples.html">huge fruit harvest year like last year</a>. We could cook down 20L at a time over a turkey fryer outside.<br />
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Ah, apples give so much. <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/01/urban-micro-orchard-year-2.html">Pretty flowers</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2012/10/apple-picking-fall-2012.html">fresh eating</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-saucing-2014.html">sauce</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2012/10/apple-pie-and-pie-preparation-strategy.html">pies</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/cider-11-blockbuster-year-for-apples.html">sweet cider</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2012/03/finished-racking-2011-cider.html">hard cider</a>, <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/03/homebrew-hard-cider-aftershave.html">aftershave</a>, and now syrup. I'd like to try vinegar too, but have not got around to it. If you have made cider vinegar yourself, any useful tips? I could start with either sweet or hard cider.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-46828056899324589512016-04-07T18:33:00.001-07:002020-06-23T16:22:53.872-07:00Violet's Tiny Embroidered Buckwheat Hull Pillow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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She has had this project going for a couple years now, but recently wrapped it up.<br />
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First she embroidered the muslin with a design to please her american girl doll Ruthie, which she received from grandma Mary some time ago. She is almost done with a dress she designed and made for Ruthie, but perhaps more on that later.<br />
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After the embroidery was done, she sewed it up with the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/02/handcrank-singer-99-in-house.html">Singer 99</a>, leaving an opening to put in filling.<br />
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While we were in Maine last fall for <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/cider-11-blockbuster-year-for-apples.html">cider 11</a>, we milled some buckwheat Ben had grown on his small orchard up there using a bike powered Country Living grain mill. The first step was to run the grain through at a wide burr spacing to crack off the hulls.<br />
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I think I had told Child 1 that I had once spent a very pleasant night in a ryokan in Kyoto sleeping on a pillow stuffed with buckwheat hulls. So she asked if we could save some hulls to use in a pillow, and Dave obligingly swept up a shopping sack full for us to take home.<br />
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The bag of hulls sat on the shelf in the basement for a few months. We pulled it out and devised a scheme for cutting down on the extraneous material in the hull filling. First we riddled the hulls through a coarse mesh to take out leaves, sticks, and straw. For this step the hulls pass through the mesh, but bigger stuff stays behind.<br />
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Next we tossed in a sieve for a few minutes, the idea being that the hulls would stay above the seive, but smaller bits and dirt would fall through. Lastly we hand picked out a few remaining bits of debris.<br />
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We filled the pillow using the cleaned up hulls through a funnel.<br />
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Child 1 hand stitched the opening up.<br />
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Nice doll pillow!<br />
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I wonder if we should take enough hulls next year to make a person sized pillow? Not sure if Ben is growing buckwheat this year again or not.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-34827632591366989622016-03-24T04:13:00.002-07:002020-06-23T16:26:44.166-07:00Garden Review 2015: Strawberries, and other Permaculture Plants<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Perennials are coming along, most of them more slowly than I'd like. Some died. Strawberries were a huge success, others gave a couple fruits and berries. We planted some new edible vines and shrubs.<br />
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In other recent posts I have written up <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/01/urban-micro-orchard-year-2.html">Apples</a>,<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/garden-review-2015-greens-herbs-tokyo.html"> perennial greens & herbs</a>, and <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/01/garden-review-2015-garlic-leeks-ramps.html">alliums</a>. But there are plenty of other plants I feel the need to write up!<br />
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<b>June Bearing Strawberries</b><br />
Strawberries were by far the best thing that we ate from the yard last year, and needed relatively little work to manage. This was their first season fruiting, and we were astounded by the volume of utterly delicious fresh fruit kicked out by our 8.5 square meters devoted to two varieties of June bearing plants. In spring 2014, we planted Earliglow in 5 bed squares in the west back terrace, Sparkle in 5 bed squares in the east back terrace. Both sets of plants were from <a href="http://noursefarms.com/category/strawberry-plants/">Nourse</a>, and both made very good fresh berries. <br />
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We also visited our CSA (<a href="http://www.redfirefarm.com/">Red Fire</a>) in June and picked lots of strawberries (and peas), which added to the profusion of amazing fresh berries.<br />
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This yearly trip to western MA is always combined with a visit to our good friends and ex-housemates Alexi and LeeAnn (though LeeAnn couldn't make it this time).<br />
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I had put straw over our berries after cold weather set in during fall of 2014, and we pulled the straw off in early spring 2015. It wasn't long before the plants were erupting in a profusion of new growth. Becky did the thinning and derunnering as the season progressed.<br />
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Then flowers started to appear, and not long after that, the first fruits.<br />
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We picked and ate Earliglow in the first couple days of June. Here is Child 2 eating peas and berries from the garden on June 3. <br />
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After a week or two during which time Earliglow was ramping up output, Sparkle came online. Despite Earliglow being described as very early, and Sparkle as mid-late, they overlapped by most of their fruit season. We were picking strawberries almost every day for the month of June, with peak production sometimes bringing in more than 4L per day. I never thought in the small amount of space we had we could manage to grow more strawberries than we would be able to just eat fresh, but my expectations were exceeded. Despite absolutely gorging ourselves on strawberries to the tune of 2 or more liters a day, we still had enough to give some as presents to friends and neighbors, bring some as party favors, and freeze a bunch for later use. <br />
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They are definitely less good after freezing, and lose tons of liquid after thawing, but they are still quite tasty in plain yogurt or along with some chiffon cake. One approach which has worked well is to let them thaw, drain the liquid, then boil down the liquid into a syrup, cool a little, then reapply to the strawberries or pour over the top of whatever you are eating the berries with. <br />
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Earliglow was on the whole better than Sparkle. The yield was higher, and the berries were a little firmer, so got less mushed and bruised while picking. The Sparkle plants were also rather too vigorous and got themselves crowded, even with thinning in spring and occasional runner pulling. The combination of the softer berries and more crowded plants resulted in many berries being lost to mold. <br />
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Notice the barren bed behind the Sparkle plants - this is where asparagus is <i>supposed</i> to be growing. More on that later.<br />
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To combat the high vigor of Sparkle, Becky thinned plants more brutally after renovation. They didn't come back as well after this treatment as the Earliglow, perhaps due to the less favorable conditions in summer on the east side of the terrace. We'll see what happens with them in 2016. <br />
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One thing Sparkle has in it's favor is a slight edge in flavor, in my opinion. I thought the sweetness and richness of the taste was a little better than Earliglow (which was also very good). However, Becky did not agree with me on this point. <br />
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We had almost no issue with birds or animals eating the berries. Hopefully this will continue, but if the birds wise up these beds won't be too difficult to net. I bought net actually, but didn't bother to put it on when it became clear it wasn't necessary. <br />
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After Sparkle had petered out at the end of June, we "renovated" the strawberry bed.<br />
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The plants were cut down in a few minutes of work with the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/03/best-garden-tool-for-2014-austrian.html">scythe</a>. Of course the kids all wanted a try. I should get them a kid sized scythe... don't all 5 year old children want scythes?? For some reason they don't carry them at Home Depot.<br />
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Child 2 is looking cute here in her second hand Little Mermaid pajama dress, accessorized with a man sized Austrian scythe.<br />
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The cut plants were put in the compost,<br />
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and I frosted the beds with compost and topped off with a layer of salt marsh hay as mulch.<br />
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In a week or two, new growth was peeking through, though the Sparkle side seemed to have a more difficult time with it.<br />
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Later in the summer the plants were doing great, especially the Earliglow on the west side.<br />
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The recommended approach to June bearing strawberries is to rotate them out after three years, into a spot which has not had any nightshades for three years. Well, that is difficult to arrange in our tiny amount of growing space, if I want to grow nightshades. So I'm often mentally juggling which beds to NOT grow nightshades in for at least two years ahead of putting strawberries in them. Plus there is a dead year the first year the strawberries are put in, so if you don't want to skip a year of harvest the garden will be low on space that year for anything else. I'd like to stretch the time to 4 years if possible, and I saw one person's recommendation for adding sea minerals to the strawberry beds to extend their run. A pack of Sea-90 was duly purchased on amazon, and some was sprinkled on the strawberry beds. Perhaps when we replant the strawberries in a new spot in a couple years, we might choose some day-neutrals in addition to June bearing, to spread the harvest over a longer period. Having it concentrated does have some benefits as far as reduction in total labor goes however.<br />
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In late fall, I pulled some runners and baby plants which were out of bounds,<br />
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and put on a top layer of salt marsh hay. Looking forward to another great strawberry year starting in June. We shall have to focus on eating up all the leftovers from last year out of the freezer for the next couple months.<br />
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<b>Alpine Strawberries</b><br />
The side yard leading from the driveway to the back was in need of more food plants. I decided to try some alpine strawberries along the path; it is not full sun there and I didn't want anything too tall. In february of 2015, we planted pre-chilled seed of Alexandria, Mignonette, and Yellow Wonder and put them under lights in the basement.<br />
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As spring progressed we prepared the planting site. Hay put down over the winter was pulled off, and we unleashed the power of the new broadfork.<br />
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That tool is fantastic. Then we put down some more compost and some granules of soil acidifier mix (pelletized sulfur).<br />
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We put the seedlings out I think in late April, but by end of May they were still very tiny. I started getting concerned that the ones from seed were not going to thrive so I bought a tray of plugs from <a href="http://thestrawberrystore.com/buyplants/store/">thestrawberrystore.com</a>. Thinking that it might be great if the plants spread themselves about the area as groundcover, I thought I would try the variety <a href="http://www.rareseeds.com/attila-strawberry/?F_Keyword=attila">Atilla</a>, which is one of the only alpines which puts out runners. In retrospect this may have been a mistake! Now there are runners going everywhere. Duh.<br />
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Actually most of the seedlings caught up to and exceeded the plug plants by fall. We even got flowers and berries, thought not a huge number of them.<br />
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Going from seed to fruit in one season is pretty impressive for a perennial. Go alpines! It is nice how they are just constantly kicking out a steady, if small, stream of fruit. It was fun for the kids to be browsing in the leaves almost every day to see if any were ripe. They were confused and amazed by the Yellow Wonder.<br />
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I scattered extra plugs of Attila around the yard in different places which seem to be difficult for plants. The woody sidebar by the driveway, west side yard (very shady), under a big maple. Mostly they did not thrive, but they are still alive enough to make runners. The thread-like runners are ~0.5mm diameter and barely visible; they are tough to see until a new plant starts growing. </div>
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By fall we had a pretty bushy path border of alpine strawberries. We put in some crocus bulbs under the leaves of the strawberries right up against the brick edges. Already these have started coming up, but not flowered quite yet.<br />
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I put some hay and leaves over the strawberries for winter, but being next to the bricks this light mulch tends to get blown off the plants by the intense wind that whips around the northeast corner of the house.<br />
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The kids are still young enough to think raking is fun, especially if they get to jump in the leaf pile afterwards. We keep all the leaves from our yard to use as mulch and compost. We don't bother to rake most areas at all, really only pulling excess leaves off the back grass and path once.<br />
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The alpines look to have made it through the fairly wimpy winter of 2015/16 with no problems - we did have one morning it was down to -21C (-6F), but only briefly. Anyway, they ought to be very cold hardy if you put any stock in their name, right?<br />
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<b>More Berries and Fruits</b></div>
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<u>Nanking cherries</u><br />
These got kind of crushed by the snow, ice, and sledding kids of the winter of 2014/15. One bush is looking a little weak, and I wish both were growing faster. There were a couple flowers in spring, but no fruit yet.<br />
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<u>Cornelian Cherries</u><br />
Picked up steam in their second leaf, put on a respectable amount of growth and looked less sickly than the first season. Even made a few flowers and one tiny fruit, but it fell off and was lost before it got ripe.</div>
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<u>Red Currants</u><br />
Jonkheer van Tets in second leaf grew well and made 5 berries, enough for one currant each for our family. The plant is right below a huge gutter leak and gets drenched when it rains and covered in ice in fall and spring. It doesn't appear to mind much though.<br />
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<u>Jostaberry</u><br />
Finally grew a little in second leaf. Hopefully will get going next season. Still very small. Seen here with some fantastic orange cosmos my mom gave me a few years ago and which self seed easily.</div>
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<u>Gooseberries</u><br />
Hinnomaki Red got utterly crushed by falling ice it's first winter, but came back pretty well last season.<br />
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No sign of flowers or fruit. I planted a Jahn's Prairie on the west side of the house.</div>
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<u>Clove Currants</u><br />
One under a maple is barely alive and essentially hasn't grown at all since being planted. I don't have high hopes for it. Even the runnering alpine strawberry I put there is struggling. I planted a second one in the west sideyard last season and it looks much happier. The new one made a single berry, but it fell off before ripening.</div>
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<u>Blackberries</u><br />
5 Chester plants struggling along in the east side yard.<br />
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We got some fruit last summer, but the plants are not growing all that well. I wonder what the issue is. Put down a heavy blanket of compost in this area last fall, hoping for improvement this coming summer. I also plan to make a basic wire trellis to keep the canes from flopping into the nearby path.<br />
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<u>Raspberries</u><br />
In the same part of the yard as the Blackberries, and also struggling to get going. They are growing and expanding but very slowly. We ate maybe one handful of berries last season, but they were small, shaped poorly, and sour.</div>
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<u>Goumi</u><br />
Growing fairly well in second leaf here, no sign of fruit.</div>
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<u>Haskap/Honeyber</u>ry<br />
Planted in barren maple covered sidebar, they were going very slow. Then they got run over with a lawnmower from the neighbor's landscaping crew. Grrr. That's what I get for putting them on the property line I guess. Replanted them in a less likely to get mowed spot, plus a third new plant. I'm not sure these will actually succeed.</div>
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<u>Aronia</u><br />
Two Viking planted last summer acclimated to the tough sidebar location. But then got crushed by ice, then trampled by a tree crew. I moved them to make room for some new plants and half expected them to die, but they grew a little and refused to give up.</div>
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<u>Autumn Olive</u><br />
A hated plant by many, but I think the berries are great. I eat countless handfuls of <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/foraging-minuteman-bike-path-fall.html">foraged berries </a>when they are in season on my bike commute from work. The one I planted last season is a selection from <a href="http://ediblelandscaping.com/">Edible Landscaping</a> (not listed this season it seems). It grew a lot the first season in the ground in a location that is challenging for other plants.<br />
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<u>Hazel</u><br />
A few that were planted in 2014 are still scraping by, but most were dug up by squirrels. We ordered more from <a href="http://www.badgersett.com/plants/orderhazels.html">Badgersett Research</a> in 2015 and planted them in a small section of the back terrace bed, with a basic cage over the top to discourage squirrels. Most of these survived. When they get bigger in a couple years I'll separate and transplant them.<br />
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<u>Chinquapin</u><br />
Put two of these from Edible Landscaping into the dreaded maple sidebar. Like most stuff I get from that source, they arrived looking good but got weak after planting. By the end of the summer though they were perking up and grew a little. No sign of any buds swelling yet; did they die over the winter...?<br />
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<u>Wintergreen</u><br />
Planted in 2015 and doing well. Made a couple berries.<br />
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<u>Grape</u><br />
Put in a Mars Seedless grape by the back porch. It grew a little bit toward the end of the season. I hope to grow it up on a trellis which I have yet to build. It looks bad in this picture, but it started looking better toward the end of the season.<br />
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<u>Hardy Kiwi</u><br />
Still worrying about the integrity of the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2014/12/attempts-at-50-year-fence.html">back fence</a> in high wind, I ended up running two stainless cable tension stays down to a lower post on either side of the fence.<br />
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These cables looked like a good opportunity for a fruiting vine. Another factor is that the top of the back fence now seems to be a squirrel highway, and if there are eventually apples on the top rung of the back espalier it will be like a squirrel drive-through fruit stand up there. But not if there were a big gnarly vine on the top of the fence! So I planted an Anna kiwi on the east side in hopes of growing it up the cables and partway across the top of the back fence. I'm a little scared of what monsters kiwi vines can become and the pruning needed to keep them under control, but we'll see. More likely given the performance of other plants in that area it will struggle along and runt out. A male was planted very close to the Anna, but petered out after a month or so. In the below pic, both kiwis are in the back left behind the pot of Child 1's mint plants. Center ground is a Nanking cherry.<br />
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<b>Other permie favorites</b><br />
<u>Asparagus</u><br />
Ugh. Everyone says asparagus is easy to grow, but not for us. Some crowns survived from 2014, but most had died. We gave the bed a gentle broadforking and planted a bunch of seeds. Most grew into seedlings, but many died in the hot and dry east side of the terrace bed. We'll see what comes up this spring and probably go for another round of seeding. I should get the soil tested again to see if anything is missing and if the ph is in range.<br />
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I think we might have asparagus beetles in the west side of the bed too. The bugs in question look like ladybugs but are more orange than red. Here are some pics from fall.<br />
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<u>Comfrey</u><br />
Whew, what a vigorous plant! I cut it down once with the strawberries at the end of june and trimmed leaves for mulch a few other times. Looks neat when it is early in the season and the flowers are pretty, if a little ungainly. Here is is in fall (there are two plants in a ~1m square area).<br />
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<b>New Plants Coming for 2016</b><br />
<u>Apricot</u><br />
Tomcot on Citation from <a href="https://baylaurelnursery.com/apricots.html">Bay Laurel</a> and Hargrand on Pumiselect from <a href="http://cumminsnursery.com/">Cummins</a>. These will go on either side of the walkway to the steps of the back terrace bed, in the lawn area. I prepped a bed next to the compost house last fall. First I took the grass off and put it in the compost or used it to patch other lawn areas. Next I broadforked the soil and put in the wood edging. Then we put down some cardboard and topped with compost. And last, a layer of hay for the winter. We dug in and planted the Tomcot this weekend.<br />
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Man, were the roots butchered on that bare root tree. They were just little stumps a like 5cm long! I've read online that this is standard practice for Bay Laurel. I'm used to seeing strong and profuse roots on the bare root plants I've previously bought from Fedco and Cummins. I pruned the top back hard, hoping to compensate for the gimpy roots.<br />
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<u>Grapes</u><br />
Marquis and Blue Muscat, both seedless from <a href="https://onegreenworld.com/product-category/vines/grape/table-grapes/">One Green World</a>. These will hopefully get grown up around the west side gate and portal. I need to build some beds and trellises for them.<br />
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<u>Kiwi</u><br />
A replacement for the male I planted last season, which I'm pretty sure died.<br />
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<u>Arctic Raspberry</u><br />
Anna, Beta, Sophia, and Valentina from One Green World. I had never heard of these, but they came up in a thread on GrowingFruit.org and I wanted to try them out. A groundcover type plant which grows raspberries; sounds excellent!<br />
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<u>Bush Cherry</u><br />
Reading GrowingFruit.org makes one want to plant all manner of new fruit. I do have an opening for a bush between a Chinquapin in front and a big sycamore maple, and decided to try out Juliet, a variety of bush cherry in the same family as Carmine Red that gets good reviews from most. Self fruitful which makes things easier.<br />
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-74632064501791822642016-03-15T09:55:00.005-07:002020-06-23T16:26:44.720-07:00The Children Assemble a Nixie Tube Clock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Child 1 had been wanting a clock in her room for a while, to know how late it was getting when she is up reading after bedtime, and also to be able to set an alarm to get up in the morning. We could have just purchased a cheap clock from any number of retail sources, but I thought it would be a good opportunity for a project.<br />
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When the kids soldered the through hole parts into the motor driver board for our <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2014/10/building-cnc-router-with-kids.html">CNC woodcutter</a>, they did a good job and had a blast doing it. So I thought if I could find a clock kit with through hole components it would present them with more parts to solder, and to a useful end.<br />
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I've always thought <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube">nixie tubes</a> were cool, and have wanted to build something with them for a long time. I even bought some tubes from one of the ebay sellers based in Russia, but so far all they have done is moulder in my basement. Apparently the display tubes were still manufactured in Soviet factories much more recently than you would have thought, and are sitting in warehouses across the eastern bloc gathering dust. You can find many a nixie clock on ebay, so I emailed the seller of a design I admired and asked if I could pay him full price but have him send the clock unassembled, assuring him that I had the skill to deal with that and wouldn't bug him much with issues encountered building the clock. He accepted this proposal and sent us a kit form clock, with some nice instructions and even a few simple jigs for mounting the tubes. What a guy!<br />
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I think of myself in this instance as admirably practical since I decided to buy a kit, rather than feeling compelled to design the whole thing from scratch and write the embedded clock code. I hope I get some credit for choosing to not do things the hard way :). It helps that the clock is so nicely designed.<br />
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The kit sat on the shelf for like a year, until I got myself together enough to set up to do the project with the kids. Child 1, Child 2, and Child 3 all love soldering and were excited to set up the static mat and soldering tools on the dining table.<br />
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Over a couple weeks, we gradually installed all the components.<br />
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I didn't solder anything on this board, and only had to help fix a couple small problems like a backwards diode, solder bridges, and the like. I did help Child 1 identify parts and figure out assembly order and orientation, as well as the use of the tube mounting jigs.<br />
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We used lead free solder, because that made everyone feel better about the project. I must say it is harder to work with. The iron temp had to be adjusted up quite a bit, and it forms dross more easily than 63/37. The dross doesn't go away as readily with application of flux either (even though I had bought a special lead free solder flux pen). But it was not impossible, just more challenging.<br />
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Child 2 put in a few parts as well, while Child 3 was mostly interested in working with me to solder bits of brass wire together into shapes. Here is one Child 2 did with me as a present for a friend's brithday.<br />
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I printed out the resistor color code and Child 1 used it to figure out which resistors were which.<br />
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Probably I lost them while shuffling the kit parts around, but we found ourselves short a 4MHz quartz crystal, the wall power adapter, and the case screws at the end of the assembly. The crystal and adapter were easily sourced from Digi-Key and I borrowed a couple screws from work for the case.<br />
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We tested out the board in stages, as directed by the instructions, and everything worked fine (after I actually understood the way the UI worked).<br />
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The clock is beautiful and works well. Child 1 is super pleased with the clock, and herself for building it.<br />
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Only minor quibble is that it is awful bright in a dark room even at the lowest brightness setting. A photo cell and auto brightness adjust would be a nice addition for a future version. The PIC that is running the clock is more than maxed out on pin usage, but perhaps a bigger chip or an external MUX could be used to address that. At minimum a few more clicks on the low end of brightness range would be great.<br />
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I love how the blue LEDs are positioned so they shine up into the sealing area in back of the tubes, such that the LED output is light piped around the tubes by the glass envelope. Brilliant!<br />
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Child 1 is happy, and Child 2 wants to build one for her and Child 3's room too.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-6991370537449529632016-03-01T10:13:00.004-08:002020-06-23T16:26:45.263-07:00Aggressive Composting, and Retiring Chickens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1b7Wx8v04R0QMxpypjxIZP9rJ9RISflRNpEf-Zgte85v8BAxYvlhqNu0CKvaEpoUqROM4-QV2GjWCBB0Vh87LvVt1wsPooaGoLTxkYbHWXu4DmXjtxoo1gl7PRmvGuRjKMY0RO8cQMAUD/s1600/IMG_4676.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1b7Wx8v04R0QMxpypjxIZP9rJ9RISflRNpEf-Zgte85v8BAxYvlhqNu0CKvaEpoUqROM4-QV2GjWCBB0Vh87LvVt1wsPooaGoLTxkYbHWXu4DmXjtxoo1gl7PRmvGuRjKMY0RO8cQMAUD/s640/IMG_4676.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Reading<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-Guide-Composting-Manure/dp/0964425831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455213012&sr=8-1&keywords=humanure"> The Humanure Handbook</a>, by Joseph Jenkins last year really inspired me to try to compost (almost) everything. So this last season we started ignoring those picky commonplace composting rules often given to home scale composters. Such as: No Meat or Animal Products, No Fat, etc. We just started putting it ALL in there.<br />
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For instance, after we eat a chicken and Becky turns the carcass and bones into stock, the extras just go into the compost. Same with beef and pork bones, bits of meat and fish leftovers, animal and vegetable fats (though we save bacon grease for cooking, yum). This has worked out perfectly fine. <br />
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I think we have more insect and worm life in our compost house than is typical, which helps to break things down much faster and with normally no perceptible odor outside the bin. The kids sometimes dig around in there to find cool bugs and pull out worms. Child 2 puts on garden gloves first, because the compost can be a little gross, but once she has her catch extracted she goes bare handed with it.<br />
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That is a big earthworm found in the wood chips, not a compost worm, which are redder and smaller. But you can get an idea of Child 2's close relationship with worms.<br />
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A family of mice nested in the compost last winter. One day in early spring I opened the lid and saw about 5 little mice running around. This was fortuitous because Child 3 is obsessed with mice. For a few months they would often go out and peek under the lids to check out how the mice were doing. As the season progressed we occasionally found dead mice around the yard. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhud32AJo1AcYAWGRIdwmyr2LXG_qNlAy9VrmuRToQrJ1QlAdCKD0NIIQ_URJoblOElq2rNSPmPsnZhG_aSbVhwzoF7ChutsjV4VlULi2_o8O3gmtzygNIQKX-_-VAV8fzGXseK8fGS7Kfu/s1600/IMG_4157.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhud32AJo1AcYAWGRIdwmyr2LXG_qNlAy9VrmuRToQrJ1QlAdCKD0NIIQ_URJoblOElq2rNSPmPsnZhG_aSbVhwzoF7ChutsjV4VlULi2_o8O3gmtzygNIQKX-_-VAV8fzGXseK8fGS7Kfu/s640/IMG_4157.JPG" /></a><br />
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We buried these near perennials, to give a dose of nitrogen and phosphorous to the plants.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhP0WZ95cql_j_k04JVnNjmVhVRGNVvMyrlx8hxjXFuYKz9jzBhu2uOeZjddrSXe18sJUyEbBwgfeUDpw7VXbIGH2zP7bcyxJTZ6HD1H7t9yNP2pPbPGTAftiz4tTUa_c4YceiVy7Hg1K/s1600/IMG_4160.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhP0WZ95cql_j_k04JVnNjmVhVRGNVvMyrlx8hxjXFuYKz9jzBhu2uOeZjddrSXe18sJUyEbBwgfeUDpw7VXbIGH2zP7bcyxJTZ6HD1H7t9yNP2pPbPGTAftiz4tTUa_c4YceiVy7Hg1K/s640/IMG_4160.JPG" /></a><br />
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When people got tired of burying mice, then started going to the compost instead. From compost they came...<br />
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Child 1 started carving a little headstone for a mouse burial from a scrap piece of carrara marble I had around, but it became an unfinished project.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-YhQ9d0HckZHCzyHlDQkdKMW8rcVLilILTU4wsVXMTkfKKxSaw8jCFxz8sRSaZEI0Lsz9H2LYD_grHs8HIOW4fOgUtsOhTq_mlZa2YeTj_3IMFjuDWAn82dJQafHmyWp85viZkkTxwy67/s1600/You_Who_Came_From_The_Stars-016.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>I was a little concerned about the mouse population exploding in the compost bins, or mice finding their way into our house, but neither of those outcomes materialized.<br />
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I'm loving <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/02/compost-house.html">the compost house we built the year before</a>; so convenient to use, plenty of capacity, and keeps the critters we have around out effectively. The greater volume and thick wood walls help retain heat and moisture, allowing the pile to seethe more actively during the cold season. Seeing as how I built it from green local rough sawn pine, it probably won't last long, but when I rebuild it I may do so with green local oak, which ought to last longer. If I can figure out space to do so, I may cut up and bury the used pine into a hugel bed, removing and reusing the stainless screws first.<br />
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We accumulate compost in the westernmost bin, at a rate of a 20L pail every 4-7 days plus seasonal garden waste. At the end of June 2015 when we cut down our strawberries for renovation, I emptied out the second bin in from the West and piled all the strawberry cuttings and some other garden waste in the bottom, then forked on the contents of the accumulating bin from a year of compost. The level was nearly to the top after forking over, but over the ensuing months it has dropped to about 2/3 full as it consolidated and continued to decompose. I'll riddle this compost to remove big chunks (sunflower plant roots and avocado seeds take a while to reduce), pick out produce labels, then spread it on the garden this spring or summer. This will mark a year since I put anything new into that batch.<br />
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Meanwhile we are accumulating another year's load into the western-most bin. The level builds up somewhat during fall and winter as the temp drops and plenty of garden cleanup and harvest processing leftovers are loaded in. But then it goes down again as biological action quickens in spring. <br />
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Most paper waste still goes into the recycling rather than the compost. It is too carbon rich and slow to decompose if much of it goes into the pile. There is also some concern about what is used for inks and glossy paper coatings, and if I want to be putting that on our food later on. But if we had the moral fortitude and space to compost our poo like decent citizens, I think the pile could probably deal with a lot of shredded paper. Maybe someday. But I'm too much of a wimp to go there yet.<br />
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<b>Old chickens to compost</b><br />
One new category of bio material we put in the newly aggressive compost system was feathers, heads, feet, blood, and innards from three chickens we dispatched in the backyard in October. <br />
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A friend of mine from work, Steve, had kept a few hens for eggs the last couple years. He had always figured on turning them into chicken soup when they became unproductive, but in those years his kids had become very attached to the birds and thought of them as pets. So slaughtering them himself was not going to make him too popular in the family. He offered them to me instead and I said I'd be glad to take them. <br />
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I'd actually never killed and dressed a chicken. One time years ago Becky and I processed a duck from my mom's neighbor for thanksgiving. We tried to catch it in a fishing net for like an hour until the farmer finally just shot it for us (probably we gave him a fun story to tell his friends about those youngster yankees from the city). And I killed and dressed plenty of rabbits and quail from hunting with my mom when I was growing up, but never chickens. <br />
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I do believe that if you eat meat, it is good to sometimes be reminded of the fact that animals are being raised and killed to satisfy your appetites, and to be faced with the earthy details of that enterprise. So it seemed like a good thing for our family to get a dose of reality and an experience we don't usually have the opportunity to choose, plus some tasty chicken soup.<br />
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We scheduled the pickup from Steve for when my mom was visiting, since she had experience with keeping and dispatching chickens, gained during her tenure living in the country in North Carolina. I purchased an ebook about the subject called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/EATING-Working-Chicken-Anna-Hess-ebook/dp/B004V9GNVQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455213400&sr=8-1&keywords=EATING+THE+working+chicken">EATING the working chicken" by Anna Hess</a>. Her books are great since her interests and methods often coincide with my own, and I've bought plenty of them on Amazon. They are short, but to the point and inexpensive. Her frequently updated and always interesting blog is at <a href="http://www.waldeneffect.org/">waldeneffect.org</a>. <br />
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So equipped with a paring knife, garden gloves, a clean sheet of plywood, a bucket of water, and my kindle we set to work. My mom has a special technique for the killing part which she says is faster, cleaner, and less chaotic than the usual methods, taught to her by an old lady in North Carolina. It is claimed to make the feathers easier to remove too. Here it is:<br />
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hang the chicken up securely by the feet; when they are turned upside down they get weirdly calm. We bound the feet with jute garden twine and hung off the side of the slide on the play set in the back yard, such that the head was about waist level. <br />
cup the head in the palm of one hand <br />
hold the paring knife with your other hand, positioning it just outside the beak <br />
do a quick but controlled and firm insertion of the point of the knife in through the open beak and up into the skull through the roof of the mouth <br />
twist and gouge the knife around a bit to scramble the brain. Don't get too enthusiastic and poke it out the back of the skull and into your hand. <br />
wait a few seconds or minutes for the bird to die, then slash both sides of the neck to let the blood out and proceed as usual <br />
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This actually worked great for us, though I have little to compare it with, not having killed chickens any other way. The first two died very quickly after the knife plunge and the whole affair was quiet and low drama, lasting only a couple seconds. The third one was less calm and squawked around while we were hanging it up, then flopped around some after the killing stroke; my mom had to hold the wings down and I held onto the head while we waited. Probably a typical setup like a kill cone or bucket would be a good substitute if you were doing it alone or with helpers otherwise engaged. <br />
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As I stood there with a chicken's living head in my hand, knife poised, I couldn't help thinking to myself, "I'm about to end your existence for no justifiable reason, other than that life is brutal and unfair for most living things. I promise to try and minimize your pain, and be grateful as I am eating you". You know, the kind of thing a liberal city person would think in this situation. What can I say, it was an intense experience. I just don't often find myself killing warm blooded animals up close with my own hands. I do think it would be better for people's health, the environment, and animal welfare if everyone were vegan. In fact, our family was mostly vegan for a year. But nevertheless here I am, still enjoying meat.<br />
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If I did this more often I'm sure it would be no big deal, and perhaps my mind would have wandered to thinking about how dreamy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Soo-hyun">Kim Soo-Hyun</a> is in the excellent K-drama <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Love_from_the_Star">My Love from Another Star</a>, which Becky and I had recently enjoyed via the internet.</div>
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But as it was, I was very much in the moment.<br />
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After letting the chicken bleed into a pail positioned under the hanging spot for a few minutes, my mom and I would start in with pulling out feathers. They were not too bad to get out by hand; some of the big wing feathers didn't come out all the way and left behind some stubble. In maybe 10 minutes of effort we had 98% of feathers removed and put into the blood bucket. Maybe the brain stabbing method does help with feather release. I would then take the chicken down and remove the feet and head with kitchen shears. Next I opened it with the paring knife and scooped out the insides in the manner described in the ebook listed above, then rinsed well with the hose. <br />
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I was up to my elbows in warm chicken stuff, so I didn't take many pictures. Here is my mom with one of the birds, note my kindle on the table. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_jMHtG81DKxg7PqN1u8dvsv0UKkPmiv-sWReSIstdGuxd1GAHaW5mc8o4D-q5tqVAVzdXT2FKPHDdOrGdhPSXqFED5T9I_OWw7RrZO_IuSb8LArRz38a0UCDbZ8TKTJIbYXvCZk7JAHLZ/s1600/IMG_5625.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_jMHtG81DKxg7PqN1u8dvsv0UKkPmiv-sWReSIstdGuxd1GAHaW5mc8o4D-q5tqVAVzdXT2FKPHDdOrGdhPSXqFED5T9I_OWw7RrZO_IuSb8LArRz38a0UCDbZ8TKTJIbYXvCZk7JAHLZ/s640/IMG_5625.JPG" /></a><br />
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Child 1 was indoors during the few hours it took us to work through the chickens, but Child 2 and Child 3 were playing in back. They really didn't seem to have any issue with what was going on, and even asked for feathers while we were plucking.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZPfFCVkdEyymFPTApGjKx88YB-DwgvVT8IFrYR57n7N9B4q9giPevQcFv-9p-jZcUz44WTuvZhVeGdNlqKn5HQ1OGMUkF02zZW4XQJ5ZHYG3Ad-1LOMgoZBipk-P2-5I9qNoQnK72KVg/s1600/IMG_5627.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJZPfFCVkdEyymFPTApGjKx88YB-DwgvVT8IFrYR57n7N9B4q9giPevQcFv-9p-jZcUz44WTuvZhVeGdNlqKn5HQ1OGMUkF02zZW4XQJ5ZHYG3Ad-1LOMgoZBipk-P2-5I9qNoQnK72KVg/s640/IMG_5627.JPG" /></a><br />
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Being in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density">16th most densely populated city in America</a>, with the backyard in view from about 17 neighbors and countless passers by, I half expected the cops to show up at some point. But apparently no one noticed, or it was not a remarkable activity. <br />
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Inside, we dipped the chickens in hot water and tried to get out the last few feather quills. These chickens had a LOT of creamy yellow fat on them. We need to do more to learn about chicken fat based cooking. Jewish tradition has a whole cuisine built upon <a href="http://www.sadiesalome.com/recipes/schmaltz.html">schmaltz</a>. The meatiest chicken was the Barred Rock, which had the coolest feathers most in demand with the kids, plus it was very calm throughout the process. I wonder if it was the individual chicken, or the breed?<br />
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At last the three chickens were double bagged in shopping sacks and went into the chest freezer. The bucket of extra chicken stuff went in the compost. In the following weeks, the compost did get a little stinky, but nothing extreme and it dissipated eventually.<br />
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Later in her visit (after we had a chance to mentally distance ourselves from the chickens), my mom made us her choice of dish for old hens: chicken and pastry. Here is her recipe:<br />
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<u>Make stock and meat</u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3B6lGz2cEKeNOgwL4BTqm8ijj4whFqdKrw4NrWxbhiMmqcBmsofzkEie8ZdBh0h6qg-NJD66TfTwrgl5N4223X4okeDf6Pf3VY53Ab6AvLDRYhylVFCrt1DB17hyphenhyphenRr1m2VZwsBk2Snnv/s1600/IMG_5749.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3B6lGz2cEKeNOgwL4BTqm8ijj4whFqdKrw4NrWxbhiMmqcBmsofzkEie8ZdBh0h6qg-NJD66TfTwrgl5N4223X4okeDf6Pf3VY53Ab6AvLDRYhylVFCrt1DB17hyphenhyphenRr1m2VZwsBk2Snnv/s640/IMG_5749.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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- cut up chicken and cover with water or broth, at least 100mm above meat<br />
- season to how you like (she uses sage, cumin, rosemary, salt, pepper)<br />
- add one onion, some garlic, whatever else you would put in chicken stock e.g. celery, carrot<br />
- simmer for 2-3 hours, pick or strain out chicken and chunks you don't want to leave in<br />
- pick meat off bones and chop coarsely (don't remove fat from pot, yet)<br />
- skim off 3 TBS worth of fat from pot, take the rest out and put in the compost or save for other uses<br />
- take out 2/3 cup broth<br />
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<u>Make pastry</u><br />
- mix 2 cups flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt<br />
- make a well in dry ingredients, add the cooled broth and fat reserved from above<br />
- stir quickly, knead for 1 minute, let rest for 10 minutes<br />
- Roll out to ~3mm thickness, cut to about 2x10 cm<br />
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<u>Make stew</u><br />
- add pastry to simmering broth, gently boil for about 30 minutes<br />
- add in reserved meat if you haven't already, any extra veggies you might want at appropriate time<br />
- push pastry down a couple times until is stays down<br />
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It was pretty good. Becky has used the other two chickens to make stock, then peeled the meat and used it for soup or salads. While the meat is not plentiful and is a little tough, the flavor of the stock and soup is intense and delicious. <br />
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We have a hazy idea that we may in future build a chicken house and keep some egg hens. Maybe after they become unproductive, Steve can return the favor and take them off my hands to spare my kids some hard feelings! </div>
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-74224065174603251892016-02-17T03:43:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:26:50.806-07:00Enterprise #25 antique iron sausage stuffer, plus sous-vide sausage<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP3owG59N0QawgvsO45dMMhkJ1DRDyAz1ggI2FsbNlN0TvA-KeqM56JJUp1IONnN1LK3XqO7F53kf9N_4L9OGPJ18yDS2E4j8GDmVe255o3JiFXGzQOgM1W-bM5qPRB5FpXUc5P1YieTwB/s1600/IMG_0494.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>
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In our menagerie of hand cranked food processing machines, I've long felt we were missing a sausage stuffer. I was attracted to the cast iron vintage beauty embodied by the line of small stuffers manufactured by the Enterprise company, of Philadelphia. <br />
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This is the same Enterprise Co. which made the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/01/enterprise-10-antique-meat-grinder.html">#10</a> and <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/04/enterprise-5-antique-meat-grinder.html">#5</a> antique meat grinders I have acquired and put to work. They also made a range of sad irons, which I hope to get into someday. I've got a concept for an induction heat docking station which would make using sad irons more safe and convenient. There is not a lot of online documentation for Enterprise Co. or manuals for its products.<a href="https://www.philageohistory.org/rdic-images/view-image.cfm/HGSv18.1660-1661"> Here is a neat link to a survey</a> of it's factory on N. Third St. from 1882.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEvcyPt43ticjuyKCPx3UCZ4povjKt0ZCgFFNxT2fbJKdWWrOPSs_Sv-N1O-OboK_Iq77kaoH7VSEvGmXBDfRKGUmt0yxJ85nhEJnQz5TOZ1F9Ju5mf7d3Uu_VFvfHmwmYoe9HOxq8tqq0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-18+at+6.44.02+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEvcyPt43ticjuyKCPx3UCZ4povjKt0ZCgFFNxT2fbJKdWWrOPSs_Sv-N1O-OboK_Iq77kaoH7VSEvGmXBDfRKGUmt0yxJ85nhEJnQz5TOZ1F9Ju5mf7d3Uu_VFvfHmwmYoe9HOxq8tqq0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-02-18+at+6.44.02+AM.png" /></a></div>
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An impressive looking brick premises, powered by steam and employing up to 400 people. Looking on google maps, the site of the factory now has an ugly office supplies warehouse on it; wonder what happened to the Enterprise factory building. By coincidence one of my best friends lives some distance to the south on N. Third St.<br />
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<b>Acquisition</b><br />
A new one can actually be had from <a href="http://chop-rite.com/Sausage%20Stuffer%2025.htm">Chop-Rite II</a> or it's distributors, using what looks like the same patterns for the castings. But they are expensive, and furthermore I think using an actual antique has a certain charm. I enjoy the feeling that a tool has been around for a hundred years, that others before me have put it to use, and that it might endure into the future to benefit the next owner.<br />
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There are plenty of Enterprise stuffers passing through the ebay market. They tend to go for a lot of money if they are in good shape, and even ones in bad shape are not that cheap. I'm pretty sure these are mostly used for decorations rather than stuffing ground meat and fat into intestines. After spending some time watching listings, I decided the 4qt #25 was big enough for me. This should hold over 3 kilos of meat per load, which ought to fill 20-30 sausages. Running several loads through during a session should be easy if needed, and I don't expect to be making all that much sausage per year.<br />
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I bid for one that looked in reasonably usable condition; I think I spent about $150 on it. Just for reference, you can get a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/LEM-Products-Stainless-Vertical-Sausage/dp/B000SQDTRC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454522005&sr=8-1&keywords=lem+stainless+stuffer">new dishwasher capable stainless and plastic hand crank stuffer</a> which probably works as well and would be easier to store and clean for less money. Guess I'm kind of a sucker for an old cast iron beauty in need of some TLC.<br />
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<b>Stripping it Down</b><br />
When it arrived, it was apparent that it in fact was not in usable condition and had been covered in a thick layer of black paint over primer, not obvious from the auction listing. The paint covered the gear teeth and the screw and everything else. Discouraged at the prospect of stripping all that paint, I put it on the shelf in the living room (yes, for decoration), where it awaited more attention for a couple years.<br />
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Lately I've been thinking on trying to finish half done projects laying about and also daytime fasting more frequently, both of which made me think of sausage and how to stuff it. Some research online turned up a number of Enterprise stuffer restorations where people had the parts bead blasted with great results and no damage to the underlying iron. <br />
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I've had heating grates blasted at a place in Everett before, but I wasn't completely happy with the experience. The internet turned up a <a href="http://www.blastermastersandblasting.com/">small scale place in Somerville</a> which did blasting and had convenient hours for dropoff and pickup, so I thought I would give them a try.<br />
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Getting the stuffer apart is easy; just use a wrench to take off the two tie bolts running parallel to the cylinder, then crank the screw all the way down and out. From this point you can remove the gear which runs on the screw, then the crank handle (using a screwdriver), and finally the horizontal shaft and gear which runs from the crank to the screw gear.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUH3TF0c36P1f_FIgP78q1DjDTDfOJeeOItd_3XNrAPhUIKtOklrsQQ7iR2HxeP0lpN7ftdAUVBBGKHQ7R8nvQ05R-BVIlQodAe7hHvvsfMPqDRtfgkNk2ARmQefPiqhR-G4kHz1LgYPx5/s1600/IMG_0422.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUH3TF0c36P1f_FIgP78q1DjDTDfOJeeOItd_3XNrAPhUIKtOklrsQQ7iR2HxeP0lpN7ftdAUVBBGKHQ7R8nvQ05R-BVIlQodAe7hHvvsfMPqDRtfgkNk2ARmQefPiqhR-G4kHz1LgYPx5/s640/IMG_0422.JPG" /></a><br />
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I asked the blasters to use plastic, walnut shells, glass beads, or soda as media so the iron wasn't abraded too much, but they ended up using aluminum oxide. It doesn't matter on the cast surfaces, but it did frost up the machined surfaces which was not ideal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDxG2HaLgHlrysPQX5JKbeGjxWG7QS74XRo_ZxObMHL97qMktdC4oNCr0jl5Coqhbi_86CP5Ydy0KKx_CqPuZoDeFG8dDbyIq4XiUnym4_JlzowkyauqNq3gtMBUqjewx-za2DmH3a9O8/s1600/IMG_0432.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDxG2HaLgHlrysPQX5JKbeGjxWG7QS74XRo_ZxObMHL97qMktdC4oNCr0jl5Coqhbi_86CP5Ydy0KKx_CqPuZoDeFG8dDbyIq4XiUnym4_JlzowkyauqNq3gtMBUqjewx-za2DmH3a9O8/s640/IMG_0432.JPG" /></a><br />
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While I wasn't happy at the choice of media, they did do a good job with the aluminum oxide and it looked like they used a fairly high grit so the frosting wasn't as bad as it could have been. They also turned it around in a couple days, which was excellent. Cost was $140 for about 12 discrete pieces which made up the machine. I masked the wood handle before dropping it off. Here are the parts when they came back from blasting.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsAdpnAztdtHseCM2lgNAWIQUNtmUGBwR4xHP5cnXP20cZnbG2Fi8V7HR2wkD7-aMHYzF9amZUA8cFMwHMQSWUlGtNpx8RHetWeQhConMIooVs9jw2IUkVW3WL3YB4cNAEJoiBwHYKtsh/s1600/IMG_0430.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsAdpnAztdtHseCM2lgNAWIQUNtmUGBwR4xHP5cnXP20cZnbG2Fi8V7HR2wkD7-aMHYzF9amZUA8cFMwHMQSWUlGtNpx8RHetWeQhConMIooVs9jw2IUkVW3WL3YB4cNAEJoiBwHYKtsh/s640/IMG_0430.JPG" /></a><br />
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Unfortunately the large disc was resting at the bottom of the cylinder when I dropped it off, and they didn't realize it wasn't part of the cylinder, so the bottom of the cylinder and the top of the disc did not get blasted. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCG7mNbxTa-CwWcKpNmr2Sm668nS1SteMIOZ56SA8fsUiDaMSqVN_5vlrBqNCFiTBVwtULIOasjp8hi5UBufFKEH5WEjJBgtNFMuZsZkSnjMwhXUgUTrVyp1y5X0fBZkU5F3EBupwXcrL_/s1600/IMG_0425.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCG7mNbxTa-CwWcKpNmr2Sm668nS1SteMIOZ56SA8fsUiDaMSqVN_5vlrBqNCFiTBVwtULIOasjp8hi5UBufFKEH5WEjJBgtNFMuZsZkSnjMwhXUgUTrVyp1y5X0fBZkU5F3EBupwXcrL_/s640/IMG_0425.JPG" /></a><br />
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I set to work with wire wheels, both mounted on the buffer and on an angle grinder to strip the remaining paint and smooth and burnish the blasted surfaces.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0UIIPq-l2ZTISNv2qh9HFfddRUZZqYn_uqYhDoO4E98VWCsBxqrjhghpTcFtEDdAHH9IbLC5-EN3QgIR2hAnQXKH7aZxW4kOqHnkWurC1y3uiuIUKeEkWokWZKPlU6bLg_Lp3UkoYtGdk/s1600/IMG_0434.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0UIIPq-l2ZTISNv2qh9HFfddRUZZqYn_uqYhDoO4E98VWCsBxqrjhghpTcFtEDdAHH9IbLC5-EN3QgIR2hAnQXKH7aZxW4kOqHnkWurC1y3uiuIUKeEkWokWZKPlU6bLg_Lp3UkoYtGdk/s640/IMG_0434.JPG" /></a><br />
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Between the wire wheels, some fine non-woven pads, and toothbrush sized wire brushes used by hand, most parts were looking pretty good after a couple hours work.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_HGVSp-Ug-x-MtalxCsjaO1Io4qA78sKxGzf7xvzx4l0VIREzQSYozKy9sKl_Ncid7e0j2SsAl-ZBDd7JIQ2NaMD8FPMEOU-9-Td6UxaRWifn6OInBwqJDUFFgAHxpZ9Yb6gYebamTrC/s1600/IMG_0436.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_HGVSp-Ug-x-MtalxCsjaO1Io4qA78sKxGzf7xvzx4l0VIREzQSYozKy9sKl_Ncid7e0j2SsAl-ZBDd7JIQ2NaMD8FPMEOU-9-Td6UxaRWifn6OInBwqJDUFFgAHxpZ9Yb6gYebamTrC/s640/IMG_0436.JPG" /></a><br />
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Later on Becky told me the skin on my face smelled just like iron. Picking paint out of the threads of screws with a dental pick is one of those times when one questions the wisdom of decisions taken on restoration projects. But, onward. <br />
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The remaining paint was stubborn and did not come off easily with the wire brush. A thick coat of Peel Away 7 with it's accompanying cover paper was put down in the bottom of the cylinder, the top of the large disc, and the wood handle on the crank.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-zSyptJNrT4P7Ewq4xm_tiu08_AWRUSb5YyItn-Ts3vRSO-5GSCzK6_mvcaUzloYHoaykMjFX53wwvcw35Y33eEcDcBfdszKfChKthF06DQILPpe1bDc6uKw8bxCLKJnOjxeOX2jiSwGp/s1600/IMG_0435.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-zSyptJNrT4P7Ewq4xm_tiu08_AWRUSb5YyItn-Ts3vRSO-5GSCzK6_mvcaUzloYHoaykMjFX53wwvcw35Y33eEcDcBfdszKfChKthF06DQILPpe1bDc6uKw8bxCLKJnOjxeOX2jiSwGp/s640/IMG_0435.JPG" /></a><br />
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This was left overnight, then scraped the next day. One thing to note is that I've yet to experience paint actually Peeling Away when removing the cover paper with Peel Away 7. But it does make paint soft enough to scrape and brush off, and the paper keeps it from drying out. <br />
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We quickly discovered that the paint covered up a not insubstantial layer of rust over everything. Nice! In case you one day find yourself thinking about covering up rust with a thick layer of paint, please, just don't. <br />
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So after removing the gunk of the softened paint and stripper, I washed the pieces and put on some phosphoric acid rust remover. This was then rinsed off and some more work was done with a nonwoven pad and the little wire brush. On the wood part of the handle, I did some sanding after the paint and stripper were scraped off.<br />
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Finally, all pieces were washed with water and Simple Green, rinsed well, quickly dried with a towel,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopbVPnCaPnB-VnjjJhExx8H59h7usRHC91Vzz8GyrOZCAbajQ8YbCWgN0YlKZOz4WcqyBhNBL0FpFsiNMw60XC4CFp0pcuw88Gr-uL9Brz-_M5XYIUkf8xHaQu4aGkibCR_eBgI16xgt-/s1600/IMG_0439.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopbVPnCaPnB-VnjjJhExx8H59h7usRHC91Vzz8GyrOZCAbajQ8YbCWgN0YlKZOz4WcqyBhNBL0FpFsiNMw60XC4CFp0pcuw88Gr-uL9Brz-_M5XYIUkf8xHaQu4aGkibCR_eBgI16xgt-/s640/IMG_0439.JPG" /></a><br />
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then completely dried in the oven.<br />
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<b>Building it Up</b><br />
Raw blasted cast iron will show visible rust in less than a minute after coming out of water,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg426Ttf7iF5v4jMjR52qPcxAJoRZOrfzuqK4s3iE7R6urcVnnLwU0FBvJawhNtIYgbQLI98mVXP69L_MwgSRjtu-TZ7suPNcJP08Xy6sXzYZRQPYkUBl4n7gFKYynHgTM3tn7DtdBkM-uo/s1600/IMG_0441.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg426Ttf7iF5v4jMjR52qPcxAJoRZOrfzuqK4s3iE7R6urcVnnLwU0FBvJawhNtIYgbQLI98mVXP69L_MwgSRjtu-TZ7suPNcJP08Xy6sXzYZRQPYkUBl4n7gFKYynHgTM3tn7DtdBkM-uo/s640/IMG_0441.JPG" /></a><br />
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so clearly a coating of some sort was needed. Since we are making food with this, I thought seasoning it like a cast iron pan would be appropriate. Many bytes on the internet have been dedicated to discussing seasoning of cast iron. Suffice to say there are lots of opinions on the best way to do it. I think for pans it is not that crucial since once you start using it frequently, it eventually gets to the right place, provided you are maintaining it decently.<br />
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Iron parts were brushed with canola oil,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBL-ABtsrtZ8FAp6p7Q160ZOcDtsXrNh8gBX5Kh9uswgh9d-4vfcw1IHtpv95kYmc81AlguFy-JB6_WbueW_Tp0YuzFyzOQhwsdueVnV418UHVd3SDXvXDHuRsVR5J840iCca3akwM3F8/s1600/IMG_0440.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMBL-ABtsrtZ8FAp6p7Q160ZOcDtsXrNh8gBX5Kh9uswgh9d-4vfcw1IHtpv95kYmc81AlguFy-JB6_WbueW_Tp0YuzFyzOQhwsdueVnV418UHVd3SDXvXDHuRsVR5J840iCca3akwM3F8/s640/IMG_0440.JPG" /></a><br />
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then put in the oven over a drip pan at 120C (250F).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODEv78bGhJ33ZwJ5TcioUrbswUBuLEwakji6jsaSloSJAarFGzFdaYhJ4BdcpgucYBpoltDSUtEYA_OaA4K1kvHkgSw3nHiweYO7pDrt2t9rvNw5n6y0ini2HRsXaTeT8sT3-K6MbDo4v/s1600/IMG_0443.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODEv78bGhJ33ZwJ5TcioUrbswUBuLEwakji6jsaSloSJAarFGzFdaYhJ4BdcpgucYBpoltDSUtEYA_OaA4K1kvHkgSw3nHiweYO7pDrt2t9rvNw5n6y0ini2HRsXaTeT8sT3-K6MbDo4v/s640/IMG_0443.JPG" /></a><br />
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After about an hour, I took each piece out and wiped off the now heat thinned oil with paper towels. Then the parts went back in and the temp was raised in stages first to 175C (350F) then to 260C (500F). After an hour at the high temp (with the hood running to suck out the bountiful oil smoke), the oven was turned off and the parts left to cool in the oven overnight. <br />
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The oil carbonized in the metal and gave it a darkened finish, not really like a well seasoned cast iron pan, but going in that direction.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lqc0sAZUwT4uvcVl79rvmoid5iM4BGQsdcIkRV_rkDQcoKxZfR8f0klIzEMpPNGLI-P3Rsw7j1Hynxqs3lRg2EG2k72IlaOGbNB3-Ax8nf6PP8P1F9SRFshM4bvApcBo2briXJhUXNe0/s1600/IMG_0453.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lqc0sAZUwT4uvcVl79rvmoid5iM4BGQsdcIkRV_rkDQcoKxZfR8f0klIzEMpPNGLI-P3Rsw7j1Hynxqs3lRg2EG2k72IlaOGbNB3-Ax8nf6PP8P1F9SRFshM4bvApcBo2briXJhUXNe0/s640/IMG_0453.JPG" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg85cTDRrXxAv-KBuwC1YMQRgn6Fw5cJihiiSc3rNFlkms6iJ-yac8T6mHhl51_LwdGom0Ye4UklpEOScQvjZ7dBhkdQ4J-xDbG2Dp1YsAP3fb7rYEjPUDZhwzSd60aCS76OJYdvD4Umhkn/s1600/IMG_0454.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg85cTDRrXxAv-KBuwC1YMQRgn6Fw5cJihiiSc3rNFlkms6iJ-yac8T6mHhl51_LwdGom0Ye4UklpEOScQvjZ7dBhkdQ4J-xDbG2Dp1YsAP3fb7rYEjPUDZhwzSd60aCS76OJYdvD4Umhkn/s640/IMG_0454.JPG" /></a><br />
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There was none of the gumminess I've experienced after seasoning at a lower temperature. I brushed and picked out a few carbonized deposits, probably from where oil pooled, then recoated with light olive oil (don't think it really matters that much, but I was out of canola),<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMXgiATV1iaJIbvR4C2VmuXTNO-H_23btX5GdHH5Pj6f6UAcG91FGHKdoeOpuiZjX6N8C2M0dhSuOCpYlQkqEmK9r9n4oXHIUPN0bYYctuFNlUb04G_YL-99uw7c_Abz64EkFXvgfWKZE4/s1600/IMG_0446.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMXgiATV1iaJIbvR4C2VmuXTNO-H_23btX5GdHH5Pj6f6UAcG91FGHKdoeOpuiZjX6N8C2M0dhSuOCpYlQkqEmK9r9n4oXHIUPN0bYYctuFNlUb04G_YL-99uw7c_Abz64EkFXvgfWKZE4/s640/IMG_0446.JPG" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRLvZNGpve_wNCLz6mH4BFfh8sr1MVSRfg0SzQ3d_2ymnZZ1azk25kAhoSwAa2mRXWqScDPsCRDzSSLTN5Wgep-JuboIf-r8VpD2u5CX4GnFf7DNghKasc54YgUnriMZCeG9H9sqpozfG/s1600/IMG_0450.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRLvZNGpve_wNCLz6mH4BFfh8sr1MVSRfg0SzQ3d_2ymnZZ1azk25kAhoSwAa2mRXWqScDPsCRDzSSLTN5Wgep-JuboIf-r8VpD2u5CX4GnFf7DNghKasc54YgUnriMZCeG9H9sqpozfG/s640/IMG_0450.JPG" /></a><br />
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and did another oven cycle. This darkened the parts further and I felt it was enough for the stuffer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpR7Z-aKDTu6OmA0FLoPgRf28dZewF-bInRFHnGxc6YxSnfvLCqJROtVvfT5ReG5KTyPCJbOPnbfH0PIrz_5YPDjgZTZ8d-4QKuPhyphenhyphenxzWFXzz5EhYXke9mI4U1V1Yqu5cQdWVN5o9cx3tN/s1600/IMG_0455.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpR7Z-aKDTu6OmA0FLoPgRf28dZewF-bInRFHnGxc6YxSnfvLCqJROtVvfT5ReG5KTyPCJbOPnbfH0PIrz_5YPDjgZTZ8d-4QKuPhyphenhyphenxzWFXzz5EhYXke9mI4U1V1Yqu5cQdWVN5o9cx3tN/s640/IMG_0455.JPG" /></a><br />
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I didn't want to put the crank handle in the oven, out of consideration for the wood handle. So I just heated it until smoking and darkened over the stove top, up close to the end of the handle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXCMKYD0MlSCNa4vDUrh3AjX35CrFFMDSqW4upNW8NIkQHuNmPlqXIJzxyl1E-NffIoXja1geLPFT7MJhU-JZR7PaiQalTmBcQAAI2XGPI4uM3xtDD2f8E2gWCr8g4FQvWdXZFZFVvwzn/s1600/IMG_0451.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXCMKYD0MlSCNa4vDUrh3AjX35CrFFMDSqW4upNW8NIkQHuNmPlqXIJzxyl1E-NffIoXja1geLPFT7MJhU-JZR7PaiQalTmBcQAAI2XGPI4uM3xtDD2f8E2gWCr8g4FQvWdXZFZFVvwzn/s640/IMG_0451.JPG" /></a><br />
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After two coats of this treatment, I took the crank arm to the basement and put on three coats of my favorite oil based finish, Waterlox (just on the wood part). When dry I applied a final coat of furniture paste wax and buffed it out with a paper towel.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ0VI26OQmSHFXgqbRcRVFAhOKwntaEODPCcfVpKuRDYvBu3-yWRi8Q15C_82gcTSMW3PpWAqY70VeNv9hSnJ0XUZEk-KwzmZJ4aEJam-QleVMZ7999FJfxZkX8a58SKgJT4j9KDnqD8jV/s1600/IMG_0466.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ0VI26OQmSHFXgqbRcRVFAhOKwntaEODPCcfVpKuRDYvBu3-yWRi8Q15C_82gcTSMW3PpWAqY70VeNv9hSnJ0XUZEk-KwzmZJ4aEJam-QleVMZ7999FJfxZkX8a58SKgJT4j9KDnqD8jV/s640/IMG_0466.JPG" /></a><br />
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To finish up the iron parts, I lightly sprayed with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Film-11-75-Spray-2-pak/dp/B008T8CXGY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1454522591&sr=8-2&keywords=fluid+film">Fluid Film</a>, a non-solvent lanolin lubricant and rust preventer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2D3sWLt9SEHRkHy2r8IGHi51wcR4P5CPzvC93FJA7N9yB0IfKo05IVWfAXYzgghliskT2WmNUDKh4zU_cQrcEXn_FEEv1djYGsmdjEMuen2LPaZgLbsG6JUc4de5RUTe6yM65WnNFIPI/s1600/IMG_0452.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw2D3sWLt9SEHRkHy2r8IGHi51wcR4P5CPzvC93FJA7N9yB0IfKo05IVWfAXYzgghliskT2WmNUDKh4zU_cQrcEXn_FEEv1djYGsmdjEMuen2LPaZgLbsG6JUc4de5RUTe6yM65WnNFIPI/s640/IMG_0452.JPG" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://fiveislandsorchard.wordpress.com/">Ben Polito</a> turned me on to this stuff; he now uses it to keep our cider machines in working order. It is pretty great, and I've started using it more and more. Works very well on my bike chain and other bike lube points for instance. It is food rated in Canada, which is good enough for me to feel ok about putting on the stuffer. Only downside is that is goes on rather thick, and has a funky biological smell to it. We wiped off the excess sheep grease with paper towels.<br />
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Most likely future dust accumulation would come off easier without the top coat of Fluid Film, but I feel better having it on and the gears, screw, and bearing surfaces will certainly benefit from it. I shot a little squirt into the two "OIL" points marked on the top bridge casting.<br />
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<b>Supplemental Parts</b><br />
The stuffer came with one bent up, rusty tube.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicB5RRtQpuuTVhqIaFbrjB1SI1MhxiY8K9eBbHgrqR13p8IqCKwrzMHU5Ml84aHIfp7yHLAk_AxajHrAqSpRD6_S3kQG8x_cfjtbYuUlOMhjpPPGQCMz-6IlAHa8UQLfGI7wve3STZen8L/s1600/IMG_0533.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicB5RRtQpuuTVhqIaFbrjB1SI1MhxiY8K9eBbHgrqR13p8IqCKwrzMHU5Ml84aHIfp7yHLAk_AxajHrAqSpRD6_S3kQG8x_cfjtbYuUlOMhjpPPGQCMz-6IlAHa8UQLfGI7wve3STZen8L/s640/IMG_0533.JPG" /></a><br />
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I took a chance and ordered <a href="http://www.lemproducts.com/product/stainless-steel-stuffing-tubes-606/sausage-stuffers">three different size stainless tubes from LEM</a>, product #s 606A, 606B, and 606C. All fit fine at the base, except the 1" tube wouldn't quite fit through the opening on the front face of the nut. This was easily solved in a couple minutes with a boring bar on the lathe at work.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXhqdwW28Spxu0WIWN9CYKnlJ96Eor6IxMzaZznPHpb6wIhbEaoixLZS5A5w-VtOdTe52TdEpjitFQPKBTtL6nYsQwodHKfsH1Cg-yzJ1hUpBIQZ5rZXngY3KlAqR4lX_WN7bzlclIsfg/s1600/IMG_0460.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXhqdwW28Spxu0WIWN9CYKnlJ96Eor6IxMzaZznPHpb6wIhbEaoixLZS5A5w-VtOdTe52TdEpjitFQPKBTtL6nYsQwodHKfsH1Cg-yzJ1hUpBIQZ5rZXngY3KlAqR4lX_WN7bzlclIsfg/s640/IMG_0460.JPG" /></a><br />
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The LEM tubes do look awful long to me; definitely a lot longer than the tube that came with the Enterprise. I suppose this lets you put more casing on the tube, but surely creates more back pressure especially with the smaller diameter tubes. Perhaps I'll cut them off someday.<br />
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I read about how people experience a lot of meat squeeze out around the edges of the disc when stuffing, so I got an inexpensive <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=enterprise+stuffer+hdpe+plate&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xenterprise+stuffer+gastket+ring.TRS0&_nkw=enterprise+stuffer+gastket+ring&_sacat=0">HDPE sub plate</a> to use which fits the cylinder more tightly and is reported to vastly reduce squeeze out. My iron plate actually fits pretty tightly, so I didn't use the plastic gasket the first time.<br />
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Finally, the thing had a tendency to tip over when the screw and head assembly are swung out of the way to load the cylinder, and I didn't want the feet to scratch up the counter. I dug up a couple red cedar scraps from making our fence and screwed them on the feet.<br />
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Now our stuffer was looking sweet and ready for action!<br />
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<b>Taking it for a spin</b><br />
With the #25 stuffer finally restored and fitted out, it was time to make some sausage! On the recommendation of <a href="http://sausagemania.com/">Sausagemania</a>, I purchased 90 meters of 32/35mm salt packed pre-tubed natural hog casing from <a href="http://www.makincasing.com/product.asp?ID=5&product=North+American+Hog+Casing+32%2F35mm">Syracuse Casing Company</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaGorO_RikvfbOyt6lq2innCKV-mpY5L8yG9vSlOwd9yLKi_wyjnaIqq-PL3A-WHCxrM21Jpwt1oSTi6ewO-pDmDaCk3sqFBctUo3QMDDagQw_eKdiy2iz15VmsTEN5WpU-oG4lr7kMMN/s1600/IMG_0482.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaGorO_RikvfbOyt6lq2innCKV-mpY5L8yG9vSlOwd9yLKi_wyjnaIqq-PL3A-WHCxrM21Jpwt1oSTi6ewO-pDmDaCk3sqFBctUo3QMDDagQw_eKdiy2iz15VmsTEN5WpU-oG4lr7kMMN/s640/IMG_0482.JPG" /></a><br />
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I ordered 2.5kg of pork butt and half a kilo of back fat from our local hipster butcher shop, <a href="http://www.mfdulock.com/">M.F. Dulock</a>. They had it ready to pick up on Saturday morning. That week, the hog was a Berkshire, and the meat looked wonderful. Gauging the level of fat in the pork butt, I chopped it up into 15-20mm cubes and did the same with about half the fat.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyj-PXh-cFyurhq1LNw2yFLTUyvkAPPheb46fGVfHDE1_0xHWYMtuuM6R-S7aYu11blbBcd_8ebQSrp_nbgiwzLfoHTrdI4jZQKJmhLR0t75SolZI1-Vr4gfAZE0MxFsCFJc0F0NTZZst/s1600/IMG_0476.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyj-PXh-cFyurhq1LNw2yFLTUyvkAPPheb46fGVfHDE1_0xHWYMtuuM6R-S7aYu11blbBcd_8ebQSrp_nbgiwzLfoHTrdI4jZQKJmhLR0t75SolZI1-Vr4gfAZE0MxFsCFJc0F0NTZZst/s640/IMG_0476.JPG" /></a><br />
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The kids had fun with the new foodsaver vac packer while I was chopping. Below, they are about to vacseal an origami balloon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSHKwR4AgqiEW933C1Y5gIJVtFdGyIpeEXC6q1nRCz5-rb_ixm3CwhDwsFT3S1BU4xOstTsAWG-y3sIOQYl3OmsVyqL6FcgGiOQXSipWfVX8XmCy-auwKPunci5o-ZAPgG7Jt7t5ZhM0v/s1600/IMG_0484.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSHKwR4AgqiEW933C1Y5gIJVtFdGyIpeEXC6q1nRCz5-rb_ixm3CwhDwsFT3S1BU4xOstTsAWG-y3sIOQYl3OmsVyqL6FcgGiOQXSipWfVX8XmCy-auwKPunci5o-ZAPgG7Jt7t5ZhM0v/s640/IMG_0484.JPG" /></a><br />
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We wanted to make a basic sausage, to check the level of readiness for our gear and technique. We used the basic recipe from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Salting-Smoking-Revised-Updated/dp/0393240053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454695853&sr=8-1&keywords=charcuterie">Polcyn & Ruhlman</a>, with just salt, black pepper, and garlic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSIo1HFeahkEdxXtRv4tCW3Pu6O56c3LtYWGqY0Tq4caBCt93dPm-HYmB4paeuoJgevbbxA_5XI909os0m-6oBoQCLzLEw3UsRGwE8NSLj57HwnanV69qIJvBtwr1FxNiABrlQ6ihrK4_/s1600/IMG_0480.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSIo1HFeahkEdxXtRv4tCW3Pu6O56c3LtYWGqY0Tq4caBCt93dPm-HYmB4paeuoJgevbbxA_5XI909os0m-6oBoQCLzLEw3UsRGwE8NSLj57HwnanV69qIJvBtwr1FxNiABrlQ6ihrK4_/s640/IMG_0480.JPG" /></a><br />
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I like garlic, and used about 1 head worth, minced by knife. We used 40g of kosher salt, which is the level recommended by the recipe and also mentioned by Michael at the butcher shop (he put it in terms of 8g salt per pound of meat), and 1 tablespoon of coarse ground black pepper. These were mixed with a wood spoon into the cubes of meat & fat,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM2o6dE_6tQBhBRXctIoXW1FIo4hF0FlNGwD2-6VYWPvJ7zyOje6oOB3Q-h97hKtlnFf5iGr2bcnx752kwjJjFL_9n7y8Fu3zU66ASQY64Oo0SyMUQVVMbsoG9kaBQWgNS9VmlDcwZxYfi/s1600/IMG_0486.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM2o6dE_6tQBhBRXctIoXW1FIo4hF0FlNGwD2-6VYWPvJ7zyOje6oOB3Q-h97hKtlnFf5iGr2bcnx752kwjJjFL_9n7y8Fu3zU66ASQY64Oo0SyMUQVVMbsoG9kaBQWgNS9VmlDcwZxYfi/s640/IMG_0486.JPG" /></a><br />
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and turned into a casserole dish to chill in the freezer for a while. Meanwhile two 9 meter lengths of casing were taken out and put to soak.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAksPXOQs6cC5Rgc27bij9jLPhoK3dSIAsy1fxhU3LADicqDB9SjoOA7hoLtpCHlm4KnnRXQbPildwjWGY39b8towa6Lqeulsw9T0M_dUyeygPi6xQ2lFpqMETvSt3W6l0OFSaZwhIlz-/s1600/IMG_0483.JPG"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAksPXOQs6cC5Rgc27bij9jLPhoK3dSIAsy1fxhU3LADicqDB9SjoOA7hoLtpCHlm4KnnRXQbPildwjWGY39b8towa6Lqeulsw9T0M_dUyeygPi6xQ2lFpqMETvSt3W6l0OFSaZwhIlz-/s640/IMG_0483.JPG" /></a><br />
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I'm looking to phase out the #10 meat grinder, feeling that it is too big for my needs, so we chilled the #5 in the freezer and set it up on the counter with the 5mm die fitted. The rate of grinding for the #5 is plenty fast for this amount of processing, but the drawbacks are that the hopper is small, so you can't load as much material and some tends to spill out if little people are helping. The bigger issue is the size of the space defined by the ID of the barrel on the housing and the outer surface of the screw. As it turns out, I should have gone smaller on the cubing step with the meat; lots of the chunks I cut were really too big and got kind of mushed as they were brought in by the feed screw. I think the #10 probably deals with bigger chunks more readily. But armed with this new realization, I feel better prepared to succeed more smoothly with the #5 next time.<br />
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In any case, it did a fine job of grinding; probably took less than 30 minutes with Child 2 helping.<br />
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The ground meat went back in the fridge while we set up the stuffing operation. A casing was rinsed and I tried to get it on the 1" stuffer tube. 32/35mm casing turns out to be just a bit too small to make this easy, so I switched to the 3/4" tube. The pre-tubed casing was very convenient to get on the tube and use!<br />
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I read about how some Enterprise stuffer users put their meat in a bag. (Yes, this whole endeavor makes plenty of opportunities for off color jokes, which I take full advantage of out of earshot of the children). The bag then goes in the cylinder, with a corner getting pulled out the spout and snipped off. This sounded interesting to me so after mixing the meat and spices with 1 cup of hard cider (substituted for the red wine in the recipe) for the binding step, I tried loading it into a 4L ziploc, which wasn't quite big enough. Next time I'll try a bit bigger bag, maybe from McMaster.</div>
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Now we were ready to start. Child 2 is munching on roasted cauliflower and apple, Child 3 wants to crank.<br />
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The kids took turns cranking the stuffer while I tried to manage the filling spout. There is a balance to how fast you allow the casing to come off the spout, how firm you let it pack, not getting the casing hung up, etc. Suffice to say I need more practice, and should probably try to do a better job eliminating air bubbles when loading the cylinder. We ended up using most of two lengths of casing, making two coils on wet cookie sheets. I had to clamp the stuffer to the counter midway through since the kids were having trouble keeping it still and also applying the requisite force on the crank.<br />
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Hmm, this sausage spiral can't possibly be 9 meters long?</div>
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Child 1 and I twisted the coils into links, another aspect of sausage making which I clearly need more practice at. Child 1 had a fine old time grappling with slick intestines.</div>
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For being so thin, hog casing is astoundingly strong. It is strange how the links hold their shape, even after being cut at the twists.<br />
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We had perhaps 150g of filling left in the bag at the bottom of the stuffer even after it bottomed out, which we made into patties and cooked in the pan for dinner. A couple sausages were also pan fried for the evening meal. They were pretty good, though a little on the salty side. Child 2 and Child 3 found them too peppery. Child 1 ate up their leftovers and was still asking for more. The garlic came through boldly. Becky thought the cohesion of the sausage filling was not as good as it could have been. I think maybe I needed to work it more during the binding step, or else fill it more tightly in the casing.<br />
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The extra sausages were frozen individually on a cookie sheet, then vacuum bagged in batches of 4 or 5. I vac sealed a set unfrozen, and of course they got horribly squished. Hence the freezing first.<br />
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<b>Other Possible Uses for the Enterprise #25</b><br />
The press is often referred to as being useful for "Cider, Duck, and Lard", in addition to sausage. It came with a cast iron bottom grate and a perforated cylinder which could be used in conjunction with a smaller diameter top plate to press material with a moderate amount of force and extract it's juices. The perforated cylinder that came with mine was beat up and very rusty, but you can buy a stainless replacement new from Chop-rite distributors. They are not cheap though, so I opted to wait to spend that money until I found something I wanted to juice with the Enterprise.<br />
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<u>Cider</u><br />
The prospect of pressing cider with this machine is not terribly motivating. Firstly, the acidic cider is going to corrode the cast iron quickly. More importantly, the capacity is not that large in the context of cider, and the amount of force it exerts is not great compared to a more purpose built apparatus. I think with the Enterprise, it would take you all day to run through a modest amount of pomace, and your yield would be low because the pressure is inadequate. Knocking up a homebrew basket or cheese press with more capacity from wood and a cheap hydraulic shop press would surely get you to a better place. Has anyone out there used an Enterprise for cider making? What was your experience?<br />
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<u>Duck</u><br />
I had never heard of this dish before, and truthfully it makes me feel a little queasy to contemplate it. Apparently it was considered the height of cuisine in 19th century France. A duck is killed by asphyxiation (to keep the blood in), and roasted intact with all organs excepting the liver. Then the major pieces are removed and the remainder of the carcass put in the press, hot. Next:<br />
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<i> "The increasing pressure of the crank plate compacts the bird until its bones are pulverized, the organs liquified, and the carcass blood juices out of the animal, all of which sluice through a small spout in the duck press and are collected in a pan, then strained through a fine chinois. The chef then thickens the mixture with the pureed duck liver, adds Cognac and red wine, and reduces it carefully until it achieves a deep burgundy, almost black color. Diners are then treated to thin slices of the duck breast in the exquisite blood sauce, followed by a second course of roasted duck legs and thighs."</i><br />
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I often feel like a bit of a wimp for not being a more adventurous diner and generally embracing tip to tail eating, but still... yuck. Description lifted from the website of <a href="http://www.dartagnan.com/duck-press-history-and-use.html">D'Artagnan</a>. <br />
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<u>Lard</u></div>
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We do <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-beauty-of-home-rendered-leaf-lard.html">render lard at home</a> for use in cooking and pastry on occasion, and I've found a few references to improving the yield of this operation by compressing the cracklins to extract the maximum liquid. This makes sense to me, but I'm not sure how much extra you would gain and getting the press covered in pig fat might not be worth it unless you were rendering a large batch.<br />
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<u>Etc.</u><br />
Thought about using it for cheese, but I think the corrosion issue would be a problem with the cast iron and acidic whey. There must be other projects it could be useful for.<br />
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<b>Sausage Sous Vide</b><br />
Some years ago I built a two channel temperature controller using an obsolete case design from a project at work, plus some affordable process controllers from <a href="http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Shopping/Catalog/Process_Control_-a-_Measurement/Temperature_-z-_Process_Controllers/1-z-32_DIN_Size_(SL4824_Series)/SL4824-RR">AutomationDirect.com</a>. It is handy to have around; my most frequent uses are in controlling a crock pot for soap making, and in controlling soil temp for germinating and growing seedlings on a warming mat. But with my recent addition of a food saver vac sealer, I'd like to try out some sous vide in a crock pot.</div>
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For those who have not heard of the concept, sous vide (french for "under vacuum") is a relatively new innovation in cooking wherein the food is sealed in a plastic bag, then kept in a temperature controlled bath for long enough to completely equilibrate to the bath temp. The setpoint of the bath is put to the level that equates to perfectly cooked for that type of food. Essentially the technique is a form of precision poaching, minus the direct contact with water. Usually meat cooked this way is finished with a short duration, intense sear to create flavor without much additional cooking.<br />
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The promise of sous vide is that it keeps the food juicy and the flavors in, while opening the process window for achieving perfectly done without overcooking, as well as enabling this to happen for the full depth of the sample. While it is possible to overcook food using sous-vide, you have a long while between done and overdone because the temperature of the food can't rise above the bath temp.<br />
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Downsides are that it works better for some foods than others, requires specialized equipment, and that it is not mentally appealing to think of cooking your food in a plastic bag for hours on end in warm water.<br />
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Restaurants apparently use the method extensively these days, in some cases to enhance the food or create new dishes, but also because it allows bulk food preparation in advance. For instance, you can sous vide a whole lot of steaks ahead of time with low labor input, then be able to finish them for orders in a minute by extracting from a bag, searing with a torch, then plating it up, with less attention to the done-ness of the cooking.<br />
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I'd read about <a href="http://anovaculinary.com/the-food-lab-sous-vide-sausage/">sausage being cooked sous vide</a> and staying amazingly juicy, so I thought I'd give it a try using my homebrew sous vide setup. Normally there is a circulator in the bath to assist in equalization of temperatures and in rapid heat transfer from bath to food, but I figured for a small amount of food it might be ok to use a still bath. <br />
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Earlier in the day I filled the crock pot with water and allowed the controller to take it up to 62C. </div>
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Then about 1.5 hours before dinner I tossed in a bag of partially defrosted home made sausages. I used a stainless thermocouple inserted through the vent of the lid and dipped into the water to provide feedback for the controller. The sausage bag was turned a couple times during the 80 minutes of cooking. Yeah, my crockpot has awesome maple handles and an electronics knob, replacements for the crappy phenolic accouterments that cracked off after years of service.<br />
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My veggies were not done yet when the sous vide was done, so while in theory I could have just left the sausages in the bath, I took them out and put them in the fridge while waiting for the rest of the meal. <br />
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Finally at eating time I unbagged the sausages<br />
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and toasted three with a MAPP torch,<br />
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and three with the broiler on high. I discovered that the >12 year old torch has a leak and should be replaced when the whole top of the apparatus burst into flame while I was toasting the sausages. Fortunately I was able to blow it out, rather than having to defenestrate it from the second floor into the snow or something silly like that. The kids found this incident rather distressing, but also exciting, and I think it vastly enhanced their interest level in eating the sausage.<br />
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The sausage casing shrunk tight while being finished, a little like heat shrink tubing, both for the torch and the broiler. This had the happy effect of getting the sausages back into original shape, almost erasing the intense squishing they had experienced in the vac bag.<br />
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The broiler group went on a pan just used for roasting eggplant, which had some veg stuck on it and a coating of olive oil. In the broiler all this got highly charred and baked on; the pan was not that fun to clean afterwards.<br />
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So my experience (undesired combustion notwithstanding) was that the torch method was faster, easier to control the sear level, and made less of a mess.<br />
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I cut up the sausages and we enjoyed them with olive oil roasted eggplant, turnips, and carrots, plus hummus on the side. While it took an almost comical assortment of equipment and process steps to get there, these sausages did turn out really juicy and extra tasty. Probably could have seared them a little more. <br />
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In future, I may try some other sous-vide experiments. But it felt like a lot of overhead for the return.<br />
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Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-54825674333364585542016-02-06T16:52:00.000-08:002016-02-16T17:18:55.801-08:00Cutter Family Clothing Archive: 19th Century Striped Plaid Silk Dress<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is another wonderful dress entrusted to us by Becky's good friend, taken out of her mom's attic in Cambridge. The fabric handles like a medium weight, plain weave silk. It has a lustre about it and is very smooth, and a little stiff, like a taffetta. Looking at the construction and style, I'm guessing it is late-ish 19th century, but it could be earlier or later than that. Maybe some costume or historical clothing people out there can offer their opinions...<br />
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<b>Design</b><br />
The waist is on the high side. It is very narrow as well; check out how it compares to a dollar bill.<br />
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So probably would have been worn with an intense corset. The skirt is very full but has no underlayers, so likely would have gone over some petticoats or even some kind of crinoline or hoop frame. Sleeves are about 2/3 length and flare out drastically as they progress. Shoulders are fairly close fitting. Trim is restrained but elegant. This dress is actually rather plain in terms of trim and fancy construction features. Here is the outside, from the back.<br />
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Neck area<br />
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Looking at some my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Fashion-Englishwomens-Construction-1660-1860/dp/089676026X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454520595&sr=8-1&keywords=patterns+of+fashion">Patterns of Fashion</a> books by Janet Arnold for the relevant period, nothing jumps out, though the sleeves and collars of 1850-1860 look like they could apply.<br />
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This dress from 1870, from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Fashion-C-1860-1940-Englishwomens-Construction/dp/0333136071/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1454520595&sr=8-5&keywords=patterns+of+fashion">Patterns of Fashion 2</a>, has some similar elements in the sleeves and collars.<br />
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<b>Construction</b><br />
I think all the sewing is by hand, which makes it more likely to be pre-civil war but of course plenty of garments would have been entirely hand made even up into the early 20th century. Look how nicely the gathers in the skirt section are attached to the bodice.<br />
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Actually all the hand work on the dress is extemely well executed, and makes me feel like my own hand sewing is at about the level of a 3 year old child from 100 years ago.<br />
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The raw edges are mostly unfinished in internal areas, which also makes this an item which was not expected to be washed often or by machine.<br />
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The hem on the sleeves, on other hand has a lovely cover band applied to the inside for about 10cm. Maybe this was to help shape the big diameter split sleeve ends.<br />
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The bodice is lined with a fairly heavy weight canvas, unboned.<br />
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Surely the boning would be in the separately worn corset.<br />
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Sleeves have a lightweight linen-ey lining.<br />
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The skirt is lined with a lightweight plain weave silk material.<br />
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Skirt hem is well done.<br />
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Closures are hook and eye, which I think only came into use at a certain point in time but I don't know when that was.<br />
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<b>Note</b><br />
Here is the note pinned to the dress:<br />
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So if it was given in 1951, and belonged to someone's grandma at that time, probably it was made before 1900.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-48935682870081007232016-01-26T09:57:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:26:52.556-07:00Garden Review 2015: Popcorn, Fiber Flax, Wheat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We grew a little popcorn, which gave a higher yield of easy to process grain than any other grain I've tried, even though by the standards of corn it didn't do great. A small patch of fiber flax, which did nicely and looked great while growing. Tried a bit of Red Fife wheat, which was an utter fail.<br />
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<b>Popcorn</b><br />
Pennsylvania Dutch Butter popcorn was seeded at the end of May, running along the center of the beds along the west edge of the grain maze area in back. Peas were still in at the edges of these beds when the corn went in. We put down some more compost and some bloodmeal in the corn strip. I tried putting a 2 wide, 3 long pattern of corn in each running meter of bed, which turned out a reasonable spacing. The corn was up and maybe 15cm tall when I pulled out the peas and mulched the edges of the bed to discourage weeds. At the same time, we planted pole beans next to every corn.<br />
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Becky had a bag of frozen herring or smelt which she decided was surplus, so we tried putting a frozen fish or two beneath each set of corn seeds. For control, we left out the fish on the outside corner bed set of plants. The corn growth was a pretty good indicator of the amount of sun experienced by each bed; the fish didn't have much impact. Maybe if the plants had more sun they would have been limited by nitrogen and nutrients instead and the fish would have shown some effect. Good way to get rid of extra fish though!<br />
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Child 1 also put in 6 corn plants in her bed up in the terrace area, all with fish. These did the best of all the corn plants, growing to expected height and most stalks making two ears. This bed gets more sun than the ones down in the grain maze.<br />
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Even though the corn plants didn't do great in the grain maze, they made a bunch of ears. When the silks were showing and the tassels were dropping pollen I made a concerted effort to ensure pollination.<br />
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Previously when we have done corn we had spotty pollination, and thus lots of missing kernels, despite numerous shakings. This time I shook the corn vigorously almost every day for weeks, and on a few occasions cut a tassel off and went around beating the silks with it. The effort paid off, as evidenced by very few missing kernels in the ears.<br />
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We let the corn dry down until September, then picked them and let them dry some more inside. A couple morning glories planted in the corn were looking good at this point.<br />
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The kids enjoyed picking kernels from the ears; pretty easy and fast to do compared to processing other grains.<br />
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Popping performance was not great. However the unpopped or barely popped kernels were still edible and tasty, unlike commercial popcorn where the unpopped kernels might as well be rocks.<br />
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I read <a href="http://www.leereich.com/2015/04/home-grown-grain-grain-ish.html">Lee Reich's blog post about adjusting moisture content in popcorn</a> for optimal popping, which inspired Child 3 and I to make a saturated salt solution to seal into a big Fido jar with most of the popcorn.<br />
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We kept the salt and water present for about 5 days, whereupon I noticed a little mold taking root in the corn. It was pulled out and stored in the freezer. Net result is even worse popping than before, though still usable as a crunchy toasted corn snack. Hrrmm.<br />
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After enjoying the dry corn stalks standing in the garden during the fall,<br />
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I pulled them up and lay them down right on the bed they were in as winter mulch (supplemented with some other pulled plants, weeds, and a bit of hay). I'll pull off this mulch and spread more compost on in the spring to prepare for next season.<br />
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I'm planning on planting flour and parching corn bought from <a href="http://www.caroldeppe.com/Seed%20List%202015.html">Carol Deppe</a> next season, either in the terrace bed or in a new front bed if I get around to building it.<br />
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So despite lackluster performance as corn goes, dry corn turned out a stellar result compared to other grains. It yielded probably twice as much per meter of space as the best grain from last year (white sorghum). And it is easy to process.<br />
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<b>Fiber Flax</b><br />
I thought it would be fun to try growing some fiber flax, and if it grew well over a period of some years making it into linen. Seeds were purchased from <a href="http://www.woolgatherers.com/FlaxSeedPage.htm">Woolgatherers</a> for a variety called "Marilyn", optimized for fiber production, and sown in about two square meters of grain maze bed in early spring. I put down the seed densely, certainly higher than the recommended rate. They came up kind of sparse however; might have been a germination issue but I think it is more likely the birds ate it. Flax is in the lower front here:<br />
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Flax is a neat plant. It is not grassy, but instead has little leaves coming off the stalk. The stalks shoot up high and straight, and tend to lodge with gusty wind, especially around the edges of the bed (flax is to the left front in below picture):<br />
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Toward the end of June, the plants put out beautiful, tiny blue flowers.<br />
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I'm sure the flax bred for flower use makes more and better flowers, but these were quite nice all the same. One interesting thing was the wide range of time over which flowering occurred. Fiber is best if the plants are harvested after flowering but before the seeds have a chance to grow much. It was not clear when I should harvest though, because some plants had yet to flower while early flowering plants had already made fully formed seeds.<br />
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Child 3 and I pulled them up and shook the dirt off, which was very easy to do.<br />
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We laid our bundle to the side while we worked on the bed.<br />
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Child 2 and I pulled all the weeds, added some compost, then returned the weeds.<br />
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Plus some hay as mulch.<br />
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Our bundle of flax was bound up and left on the front porch to dry out for a few weeks.<br />
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Then I spread it on the grass in back to dew ret.<br />
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It diminished in volume significantly in this time. I've read that you need a 6x6 meter field of flax to make enough linen for a shirt. So I only need to grow for about 10 years like this to get enough for a shirt. Maybe after another year I could have enough for a pair of undies though! I bet my flax did not grow as well as commercial flax however, so my homegrown underwear might take a few more years. Meanwhile the bundle is in the basement awaiting further stockpiling before fiber processing.<br />
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<b>Wheat</b><br />
Last year I grew a little bit of Black Eagle spring wheat, from Fedco. It grew surprisingly well even in a suboptimal location, and the birds didn't bother it either when seeded or as the grain matured. Black Eagle had giant black awns coming off the kernels of wheat, which looked amazing and probably helped keep the birds from getting too interested.<br />
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They also made the grain <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/04/backyard-grain-maze.html">harder to process</a>. So this year I tried planting one square meter with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fife_wheat">Red Fife</a> spring wheat. This is a heritage variety which was widely grown in the 19th century in America and has an enthusiastic following of bread bakers in the modern day. It started out ok, seen here in June next to lavender and strawberries.<br />
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Sadly, the birds decimated it while it was still unripe and on the stalks. They ate almost every kernel out of the heads, breaking them down to the ground in the process.<br />
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I sowed some buckwheat on the remains of the Red Fife plants for the remainder of the season.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-26441542073846315642016-01-16T06:45:00.002-08:002020-06-23T16:22:58.561-07:00Urban Micro Orchard: Year 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The 7 apple trees in the micro-orchard did very well in the beginning of the season, we ate our first couple fruits in the fall, and got plenty of production from the companion plant understory. Overactive management on my part led to the destruction of 2 trees in late summer. Nevertheless, I have high hopes for next year!<br />
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You can find a post about the design of the orchard <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2014/06/urban-micro-orchard-planning-and.html">here</a>, and a review of the first growing season<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/02/urban-micro-orchard-year-1.html"> here</a>.<br />
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<b>Growth</b><br />
Last season's growth was modest but steady, so the trees entered their second leaf still fairly small. The settling of the excessive snow fall we saw in the Boston area last year cause a few of the training canes I had set up for the angled branches of the espalier to come loose, but luckily I noticed and reattached them as the snow melted down.<br />
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I did the pruning in March. It was not much work, because the trees were so little. In two cases, I didn't get branches where I wanted last year, so I put a small notch above a bud or small growth on the trunk to encourage the branch I needed to fill the design. I headed the leader a little above where I wanted the second rung of branches, and cut back the first rung branches a bit to even them up and encourage more growth. Here is the center tree, the Wickson, after pruning.<br />
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A double neem holistic orchard spray (<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/02/urban-micro-orchard-year-1.html">recipe included in my year 1 post</a>) was applied at about 5mm green tip, no spray while the blooms were open. The flowers were open in early May, coincident with some bulbs we planted the previous fall.<br />
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It was such a lovely sight after all the snow and cold we endured through the winter.<br />
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The trees started growing quickly after blooms fell off, and I had to scramble to keep up with pinching to remove errant growth, stimulate branching in the case of the central leader, and to stimulate spur formation on side growth from the rung branches. Also added bamboo canes for the chevron pattern trees, and lashed down growing limbs to their guides throughout the season.<br />
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As the leader would get up to the next wire or set of canes, I pinched it to encourage branching, then allowed two branches to grow out over the guides and the leader to proceed up to the next level. This worked out very well, and I have only one missing branch on the Ashmead's Kernel which I need to try to rectify next spring with a notch.<br />
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I did a couple guerrilla grafts onto trees along the bike path for practice, using prunings off my trees. Some of them made it.<br />
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The sprayer got a workout putting on holistic orchard spray something like every two weeks. A half tank of spray would quickly cover these small trees, so it wasn't a big deal. I was hoping to stay ahead of Cedar Apple Rust, and indeed it hit my trees a lot less than it did the previous year. On the other hand, the trees are now more established and the spring was fairly dry. So not sure how much the liquid fish, kelp, EM-1, molasses, and neem in the spray helped.<br />
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In any case the trees grew out around 50+cm, which I'm very happy with. I don't think I'd want them to go more than that in a season anyhow.<br />
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Several trees have reached the end of their allotted area on the first rung, and the second rungs are about halfway out. Third rungs grew out enough to receive grafts this coming season, to hopefully begin realizing my multigraft espalier plan. Right now I have a spreadsheet where I constantly shuffle in and out varieties which I want to put on. I think I have picked out 21 total varieties. Not sure how many I'll actually graft on or what my success rate will be, but it's fun to daydream.<br />
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The Goldrush tree is perhaps the best looking specimen at present. I intend to graft a scion to the leader above the fourth rung and let it grow up to form rungs 5 and 6, while stimulating Goldrush branches below the graft to grow into rung 4.<br />
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In early August I cut a few lengths of willow bough from a tree on the bike path and fashioned them into a heart shaped guide to grow the center tree upon.<br />
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Just after I did this, that tree died. What a blow!<br />
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<b>Fruit</b><br />
I think only the Wickson and the Rox. Russet bloomed, and to my surprise set some fruit. I probably would have been better off stripping all the fruits and letting the trees focus on making wood, but I couldn't resist leaving two fruits on each of those trees, justified by the reports that those varieties are high in vigor so I might want to slow them down a little anyway.<br />
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The Rox. Russet did grow a bit less than the Goldrush right next to it, and gave us two nice sized delicious apples.<br />
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They fell off early because the shoulders got higher than the stem length and pushed the fruit off in September.<br />
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They also exhibited pretty severe watercore, which I'll attribute to the young age of the tree.<br />
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I told the kids watercored apples were considered a delicacy in Japan, which made them even more pleased to eat them up. Child 1 is about to eat a slice here, while she is showing off the fairy dress and hat she made out of leaves, grass, flower petals, and maple seeds.<br />
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The Wicksons fell off in August as the tree was dying, so they were not ripe but we ate them anyway. They did have some of that characteristic Wickson flavor, but tasted unripe and not sweet. Too bad.<br />
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<b>Troubles</b><br />
Biggest problem I had this year was encountered when I painted the lower trunks of the trees with straight raw neem oil as a preventative measure against borers. I had read about doing this both in the growingfruit.org forum, as well as on a forum run by Michael Philips. As it turns out, G.11 rootstock really hates getting covered in neem oil in the hottest part of the summer.<br />
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I put on the oil at the end of July, and some weeks later, I noticed the center Wickson looking like this.<br />
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WTF?? I posted this issue to the <a href="http://growingfruit.org/t/2nd-leaf-wickson-suddenly-looking-terrible-advice/2258">growingfruit forum</a>, and the general feeling was that it must be down to the neem.<br />
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4 of 7 of the trees (plus a spare Wickson I had temporarily set between designed-in trees) were on G.11/M.111 interstem rootstock. For some reason, most likely the neem, the roughly 15cm chunk of G.11 was really damaged by the oil. In the case of the center tree, it died all the way around. I could see the bark was dead on the G.11<br />
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while the M.111<br />
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and the Wickson wood<br />
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were still live. But over the next month the Wickson top of the tree died out and eventually I cut it off so it's corpse wouldn't taunt me over the winter. Arrgh.<br />
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Well, you win some you lose some.<br />
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Almost all the plants on the west side of the terrace and orchard beds are doing better than those on the east side. The west gets more morning sun and a little shade in the afternoon, which is the only difference I can think of between the two areas. The pieces of G.11 interstem on the east side suffered more, maybe as a result of being baked in the afternoon sun. While the center Wickson died all the way around, the other G.11 pieces on the east side showed much more damage on the south face of the trunk, with some surviving bark on the north face. This was enough to keep the trees from dying, though the spare Wickson was so crippled I cut it down to put it out of it's misery. The trees on the west side with G.11 were not badly damaged by the neem.<br />
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G.30, B.9, B.118 and M.111 all seemed unaffected by the neem treatment, along with all the varietal wood on the tops.<br />
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I wrote to Cummins, where I bought the trees, to see if they had any advice. Here is our exchange:<br />
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<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> Hi guys, I bought 8 apple trees from you about 1.5 yrs ago, most on<br />>> G11/M111 interstem. Everything was doing great until this summer. At the<br />>> end of July, I painted straight raw neem oil on the trunks, as an attempt<br />>> to kill borer eggs/larvae. I don't know that I would have borers, but I<br />>> had<br />>> read from two different sources about painting on neem and it seemed like<br />>> a<br />>> good preventative measure.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>>BOTH PLUM BORER AND DOGWOOD BORER, WHICH ARE THE MAIN CULPRETS, PRETTY WELL RESTRICT THEIR ATTACKS TO BURRKNOTS. APPLE TREE BORER IS PRETTY RARE. I THINK YOU TOOK SOME VERY BAD ADVICE.</span><br />
<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> About a month later, the whole upper section of one of the trees abruptly<br />>> died, and some others started looking terrible. With some investigation,<br />>> I<br />>> found that the interstem piece of G11 had died all the way around the<br />>> tree,<br />>> while the lower root and top variety were still alive. On the ones that<br />>> were looking bad but not dead, the G11 was dead in some places but still<br />>> partly alive in others.<br />>><br />>> The only explanation I can think of is that the G11 really hated getting<br />>> coated in neem oil in the summer heat. All the varietals on top, some<br />>> G30,<br />>> the M111 roots, and some B9 and B118 seemed fine. But the G11 was really<br />>> affected. So probably a self inflicted wound on my part with the neem</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> treatment. Doh! DOES SOUND AS IF G.11 IS PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE TO CONCENTRATED OIL. I'M SURPRISED YOU GOT LITTLE OR NO DAMAGE ON OTHER STOCKS.</span><br />
<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>><br />>> On the tree that totally died up top, the M111 lower root is sending up<br />>> some vigorous shoots now. I'm thinking of trying to use the two years of<br />>> root growth there by grafting to them in spring either using a bark graft<br />>> to the cut off little trunk or else a whip and tongue onto one of the<br />>> shoots if it gets big enough.<br />>><br />>> For the space I have, growing right on M111 will get much too big without<br />>> a lot of continued pruning work, so I am still attracted to interstem.<br />>> I'm</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> hoping you may be able to give me some advice: IF YOU HAVE GOOD GRAFTING SKILLS, THEN PUT IN A 10-INCH PIECE OF G.11 OR BUD.9 EARLY IN THE SPRING. YOU COULD GET LUCKY BY ALSO INSERTING A VARIETAL BUD IN THIS INTERSTEM ABOUT 7-8 INCHES ABOVE THE BOTTOM GRAFT. IF BOTH GRAFT AND BUD TAKE, YOU HAVE Y OUR TREE RESTORED. IF BUD DOES NOT TAKE, YOU CAN STILL REBUD IN THE SUMMER.</span><br />
<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>><br />>> - Do you have any experience with B9 on M111? Or should I just put G11</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> back on as interstem? BUD.9 MAKES AN EXCELLENT INTERSTEM.</span><br />
<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>><br />>> - Do you think grafting on the M111 roots is a good idea? Or should I<br />>> just<br />>> dig it out and start over with maybe just a non-interstem G30 or G202?<br />>><br />>> - Do you think the neem coating is the likely culprit, or should I be</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>> looking for a different problem? I VOTE FOR NEEM OIL.</span><br />
<span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>><br />>> On the trees that the G11 died only partially, I'm entertaining the idea<br />>> of doing one or two bridge grafts from the M111 lower root up to the<br />>> varietal. Maybe this is crazy. It would certainly be more advanced<br />>> grafting<br />>> that I have yet attempted, but it seems like a shame to just dig out and<br />>> start over.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">>>CRAZY, YES; BRIDGE-GRAFTING MM.111 WOULD EVENTUATE IN A FULL MM.111-SIZED TREE. BUT YOU COULD BRIDGE USING BUD.9, G.11 OR EVEN G.30 AND GET WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. ANOTHER POSSIBILITY, IF YOUR INTERSTEM IS NOT TOO HIGH ABOUT THE SOIL: INARCHING -- PLANT A COUPLE OF LIN ERS OF , E.G., G.11 OR BUD.9, JUST AS CLOSE THE THE TREE AS POSSIBLE; THEN GRAFT THE TOP OF THIS IN JUST ABOVE THE DEAD INTERSTEM.</span><br />
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<b>Companions</b><br />
The other plants in the bed mostly did very well. They show the same pattern of thriving more on the west side, but the east side plants did ok too. We ate plenty from the bed this year, and enjoyed it's assortment of flowering and interesting plants. <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2016/01/garden-review-2015-garlic-leeks-ramps.html">Review of Alliums here</a>,<a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/garden-review-2015-greens-herbs-tokyo.html"> herbs and greens</a> here.<br />
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Daffodils, Tulips, and Muscari were great their first season, we'll see if they can make it past that especially with the squirrels digging everything up twice a year.<br />
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The irises I planted in summer 2014 were lovely.<br />
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One of the oriental poppies from last year had died, so I put in another from the nursery.<br />
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They don't seem to be thriving though I so may need to find a different plant for those spots.<br />
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An interesting exception to the tendency for the west side plants to do better than the east side was seen in some annuals I tried to grow up poles and onto the as yet unused upper wires of the tree trellis.<br />
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On the west side I grew a Sweetmeat Oregon Homestead winter squash up a pole. It was doing pretty well and looking neat in the orchard, until it was dispatched in a matter of days by what I think was squash vine borers.<br />
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A couple plants of Cosse Child 1ta purple pole beans were grown up a pole on the east side too. These did awesome and made tons of delicious beans from a small number of plants, seen here encroaching on an Opalescent apple tree.<br />
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On the west side, I tried to grow Blacktail Mountain watermelon and scarlet runner beans up poles. They did germinate but then languished and remained small. My theory about that: these are summer growing annual crops that can deal with the heat and afternoon sun of the east side, and exploited the scarcity of other plants there to thrive. On the west though, the soil is already dense with other perennial plants which maybe competed more vigorously with these annuals. Additionally, it is on the whole probably slightly less sunny.<br />
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<b>Plans for 3rd Leaf</b><br />
The biggest issue to sort out has been what to do about the dead tree in the center. The shoots off the M.111 roots are not big enough to graft to and really slowed down as the season progressed. So I'm concerned the M.111 roots suffered by having the top of the tree die 2/3 of the way through the season. My friend Ben convinced me that rather than messing around with complicated grafting on a highly compromised tree that may never fully recover, I should just bite the bullet and dig it out to plant a new tree. So I ordered a King David on G.222 from Cummins to put in this coming spring. The King David is more resistant to Cedar Apple Rust than Wickson, and I was aiming to graft some on later anyhow. After letting the first two rungs grow out King David, I'll graft it over to Wickson.<br />
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I may try to inarch a piece of G.30 rootstock to the Ashmead's Kernel on the east side which was weakened by the neem incident.<br />
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I also intend to graft some upper parts of other trees to begin my multigraft journey. Right now for this coming year I'm aiming to add Esopus Spitzenburg, Calville Blanc d'Hiver, Bramley's Seedling, Chestnut, and Karmijn de Sonnaville.<br />
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The two Sorrel plants will be divided, and I'll start shaping the onion plantings more aggressively. Hopefully I can get a perennial leek patch going too.<br />
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A couple parting pictures: Child 1 reading a book in the garden in fall.<br />
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Snow on the orchard in January:<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-44924574823466017062016-01-10T06:56:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:26:53.121-07:00Garden Review 2015: Garlic, Leeks, Ramps, and other Alliums<br />
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Alliums are a fantastic group of plants. I have loads of alliums planted in different areas, some growing as perennials, some as annuals.<br />
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<b>Garlic</b><br />
I've been growing Music garlic these last few years, a hardneck in the Porcelain family which I got from my mom. It is awesome.<br />
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I had tried growing Applegate Giant and Mother of Pearl, both softneck varieties in 2012 and 2013. They did not work well for me, growing weakly and making small heads and cloves. Then I tried some Music, which my mom had been growing in Oregon for years. It blasted out huge, healthy plants, and made perfect looking large heads.<br />
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Porcelain family garlics tend to make very large cloves, but with few cloves per head. I typically get 4 or 5. They are easy to peel, and for people who use lots of garlic for cooking the large clove size is super convenient. Being a hardneck, they also send up tasty scapes in the late spring which should be cut and eaten.<br />
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Last winter I read an excellent book on this plant, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Garlic-Gardeners-Growers/dp/0881928836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450369805&sr=8-1&keywords=the+complete+book+of+garlic">The Complete Book of Garlic, by Ted Jordan Meredith</a>.<br />
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It really is Complete, including a DNA analysis of different garlic families and how they are related, detailed descriptions, cultural information, history, health effects, cooking info, etc. Lots of great pictures too. I learned so many things I never knew about garlic before; it was so fascinating. Highly recommended. It is expensive from Amazon, but luckily I could order through the library.<br />
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The Complete Book of Garlic told me that the taste of Porcelain family is sometimes deemed a bit harsh and un-nuanced. I think they taste nice, but it did make me interested to try some varieties that are described as having superior flavor. Bulb production benefits from getting their scapes cut, which apparently is not true for all hardneck families (softnecks don't put up scapes). Porcelain makes among the biggest of cloves, but the smallest of bulblets if allowed to bolt fully. I've been planting on the order of 20 plants the last few seasons, which gives me about 16 heads to eat. One drawback of fewer but bigger cloves is that a bigger percentage of the harvest must be devoted to next year's seed.<br />
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I planted the cloves in the back terrace bed in September of 2014; they came up a bit before it got really cold in November. They spent the winter under some hay and record setting amounts of snow, then came up strong in the early spring and made the big, healthy plants I've come to expect from Music. Here they are in May, you can see the leek sets just getting going in the same bed:<br />
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Later in May<br />
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The scapes were cut and eaten; seen here with topset bulbs from the egyptian onions and some radish pods.<br />
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We dug them up in July, then hung them from a line under the front porch for a few weeks.<br />
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The kids cut off the roots and leaves and took off the dirty outer skins.<br />
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Child 1 tried using the hard neck cut offs for a straw. She said it tasted a little garlicky.<br />
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Here is the garlic we grew, ready to put in the garlic basket in the kitchen.<br />
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20 plants is enough to last us something like 4 months. I'd like to grow more, but as usual I have a space constraint on total planting are so more garlic means less of something else.<br />
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But reading that book made me interested to try some other varieties too, so in September of 2015 in addition to the Music I planted a little bit of Spanish Roja, Chesnok Red, and Tempest. The Spanish Roja is a Rocambole and supposed to be top shelf for taste. The Chesnok Red is a marbled purple stripe which I found interesting because purple stripes are genetically closest to primordial wild garlic. And the Tempest is an Asiatic garlic, which don't suffer much from leaving the scapes on and make cool flowers, plus large bulbils that can head in 2 years growth. I bought these other varieties from <a href="http://www.filareefarm.com/seed-garlic-for-sale/Seed-Garlic/">Filaree</a>, which has a well organized and extensive selection of seed garlic.<br />
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<b>Leeks</b><br />
Becky has been roasting chickens on a bed of leeks, which makes the leeks mind blowingly delicious. The chicken fat and juices dribble down and soak into the leeks, which also get a little burned during the cooking. The result is heavenly, and there is plenty of competition for these leeks around the table when we have a roast chicken dinner. Well at least between myself, Becky, and Child 1. This made me want to grow some leeks.<br />
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I've talked to people who have tried leeks around here and not had great results. The season is not really long enough to grow big leeks as annuals without a greenhouse or other such measures. But I figured I'd give it a try.<br />
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We started King Richard and Megaton seeds in the basement under our <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/03/making-led-grow-lights.html">homemade LED grow lights</a> on Valentine's day.<br />
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They sprouted well, but did not get big<br />
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When I wanted to put them out at the beginning of April, they were still tiny so I got worried and ordered King Richard sets from Johnny's. We planted both the sets and the seedlings, the sets mostly in the back terrace bed,<br />
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the seedlings mostly in the orchard bed. I poked a stick in about 15cm, then we dropped a baby leek into the hole and didn't push the dirt in, leaving it to fill in or not on it's own.<br />
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The seedlings had long roots and I wasn't sure whether to trim them or not so I trimmed some and didn't trim others. I think the trimmed ones did a little better.<br />
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At first the sets were in the lead. But in the heat of summer, most of the ones from the sets bolted. What's with that? Are sets actually second year plants? I cut the scapes and we ate them, but the bolting led to many a leek having a hard and inedible core.<br />
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The seedlings did not bolt, and by late summer looked to be in better shape overall.<br />
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Unfortunately I didn't keep good track of which seedlings were King Richard and which were Megaton. All together we planted on the order of 50 plants.<br />
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I picked the leeks as appropriate, thinning out young ones earlier in the season. Here are some decent ones from late July along with a picking of pole beans.<br />
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This fall has been unusually mild and long which has allowed the last of the leeks to achieve a respectable if not enormous size,<br />
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We have been feasting on leeks through December. For thanksgiving we picked a whole mess of leeks<br />
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Child 3 and Child 2 and I cleaned them up<br />
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and brought them in for Becky to cook with.<br />
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She put an armload of them under the turkey. They were yummy, but didn't get quite the same burn they get with a chicken. Becky has also made a few batches of potato leek soup, and put them in other dishes like sprouted wild rice casserole. I put some into jars of kimchee and fermented veg.<br />
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A blog I came across and started reading over the summer called Turkey Song (now moved to <a href="http://skillcult.com/">SkillCult</a>) had <a href="http://skillcult.com/search?q=leeks">some great articles on growing leeks</a>, wherein the author extols the virtues of collecting your pee and putting it diluted on the growing leeks. So I got a stainless screw cap water bottle to keep inside and labeled it "High Nitrogen Liquid Fertilizer - Not for Drinking". Don't worry, there were plenty of rains and watering between application and harvest! Now I think of all the pee going to waste all across the city, which could easily be used for fertilizer... maybe I could go around the neighborhood with a pail soliciting donations?<br />
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Some of the pictures on Turkey Song of giant leeks left me feeling mighty impressed. Becky says a leek that big is not even useful, and what do you need with a leek that big? She thinks I'm enamored of the giant leeks because I'm a guy and there is some deep envy going on. Nonsense, I say; think how awesome it would be to have a 100mm thick leek log in your fridge for a couple months - you could trim off pieces at your pleasure for frequent use in the kitchen.<br />
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When Child 3 picked leeks with me for thanksgiving he wasted no time turning one into a pretend gun. So far my experience is that there is nothing in this world that a 4 year old boy can't turn into a pretend gun.<br />
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Child 3 really enjoyed processing leeks on the back yard table with me throughout the season. I would peel the outer layer of leaves off, he would cut off the roots and the dry or ragged leaf ends on the top.<br />
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One awesome thing about home grown leeks is that the leaves are good to eat, not all dry and fibrous like store leeks. So you get a lot of veg out of a couple leeks, even if the shafts are not all that thick.<br />
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The leeks worked out well. I've got about 10 more in the orchard bed that I'll probably pick next weekend. Steven Edholm (of Turkey Song) recommends growing long shaft leeks for as long a season as possible. He goes for about a year in California, using a variety that I don't think would do as well in our colder climate (Bulgarian Giant). I'm planning on trying out Giant Musselburgh and Carentan next year, and planting the seeds a few weeks earlier under brighter lights, maybe Feb. 1.<br />
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I have a space in the orchard reserved for a strip of perennial leeks. These make little offsets next to the main plant, which can be removed, planted, and grown up for harvest. This sounds easier and cheaper than buying and starting seeds every time, so I'm interested. For the last two years I have placed an order for the Perlzwiebel perennial leeks at Southern Exposure, but both times they had crop problems and sent my money back. They are not even listed in next season's catalog or on the website now :(<br />
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Just recently I read that hardy winter leeks normally grown as annuals can just be left in to perennialize; one guy's page suggested they could be hardy to zone 4. One reason I selected Musselburgh and Carentan for next year is that they are described as very cold hardy, so may have a chance of making it through winter with some hay on them. I'll also try leaving in a few of my remaining leeks in the orchard bed this year to see the results with either Megaton or King Richard.<br />
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<b>Ramps</b><br />
This seemed like a possible candidate to colonize an area next to the driveway under maple trees, where most other plants have trouble growing. From <a href="http://rampfarm.com/">Rampfarm.com</a> I ordered some bulbs and the short book "Having Your Ramps and Eating Them Too", which strangely was not listed in the library catalog. As soon as I could penetrate the soil in early spring I put the bulbs in and they grew ok. Most flowered, then died away. We'll see how they come back next year. Ramps are more difficult to propagate than many other alliums. They don't split their bulbs prolifically like garlic. The seeds are not trivial to germinate and grow. So I don't know how it will work out, but reading all the descriptions of "ramp feeds" in that book makes me want to eat some ramps. One time I saw some at Whole Foods; one ramp was like $6 and it was not looking in top shape.<br />
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I feel sure there must be some around for foraging, but so far I have not identified any.<br />
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<b>Egyptian Onions</b><br />
These are going like gangbusters in the orchard bed. We cut green onions from them a number of times in the spring and fall, and I collected probably half of the topset bulbs. Some of the plants got tall enough to start interfering with the V pattern espalier Gold Rush tree in the west side of the bed, so I may thin some of them out next season in that area.<br />
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The plants look cool when they are doing their topset bulb/flower thing, and just plain crazy when the topset bulbs start growing new onion plants while they are still at the top of the original onion plant. Fractal plants!<br />
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Most of the topset bulbs got planted in the barren maple sidebar in the front, as an attempt to colonize the area with tough and useful plants. I sent a few to my mom as well for her to try out.<br />
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The majority of the plants are grown from topsets I bought from <a href="http://egyptianwalkingonions.com/">EgyptianWalkingOnions.com</a>, but a small area is planted from some topsets I gathered while at Red Fire Farm two years ago. At this point the two areas are indistinguishable.<br />
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I love how vigorous, easy to propagate, tasty, and interesting looking these plants are.<br />
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<b>Potato Onions</b><br />
Tried a few of these in the orchard bed, the "Yellow Potato Onions" from Southern Exposure. They grew pretty well, but made small bulbs.<br />
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Child 2 had a fun time pulling them up when the plants had died back a bit in mid summer.<br />
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I saved a couple to plant again next year, and Becky mainly used the other ones in making stock, which doesn't require peeling the bulbs.<br />
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I also bought some Green Mountain and l'Itoi bulbs from Steven Edholm in CA; these bulbs looked great and I would be very happy to produce such onions. We'll see if they do any better than the Yellow ones from SESE.<br />
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A small earth box planter on the front steps got a batch of new potting soil (1/3 compost, 1/3 coco coir, 1/3 vermiculite) and was planted in September with a sampling of the garlic and potato onions to see how they do up there. Most of the garlic and potato onions were put into the terrace bed which had tomatoes and carrots in 2015, after a frosting of compost and hay were applied. The bulbs came up a bit, especially the potato onions.<br />
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<b>Green Onions</b><br />
These continue to do well in the orchard bed, and we cut a number for use in spring. An unexpected benefit of allowing them to grow as perennials is their beautiful flowers.<br />
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I tried to add to their number by starting some seeds of Ishikura green onion inside and then moving them out to plant in late spring. I'm not sure they survived. I'm hoping the seeds dropped by the flowering green onions this year will fill in the area I reserved for them next year, and I'll thin as needed to define the planting.<br />
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If one has a ton of green onions, a wonderful way to eat the green leaf parts is to brush with olive oil, salt lightly, then roast until they get dry and crispy. Then they are like onion chips and are fantastically tasty. This also works well with home grown leek leaves as long as they have not got too fibrous. The white parts of green onions are also great brushed with oil, salted, and roasted until tender.<br />
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<b>Chives</b><br />
What a great plant. Looks nice, survives like a champ, spreads itself around but not too aggressively. And good to eat. I love to put a pile of chives on my pizza before it goes in the oven. They get all burned around the edges and soaked into the cheese in the middle. Also work well in jars of fermented veggies.<br />
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I replanted a few pots of chives we had in front to help fill in the garlic chive area in the orchard bed, and more to try to colonize the stubbornly bare maple sidebar. I figure if anything can make it over there it would be chives.<br />
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<b>Garlic Chives</b><br />
These took off this year, after a very modest showing last year. They grew up big and made pretty flowers with lots of seeds that I'll probably be pulling seedlings from next year.<br />
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You can see some of the interspersed chives and garlic chives at the foot of this Tydeman's Late Orange apple tree.<br />
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Didn't eat too many of them, but I cut a bunch at the end of the season to put in some jars of home made kimchee.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-75898847546718025752015-12-24T14:28:00.000-08:002016-01-10T06:57:01.760-08:00Undies of Desperation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipO-2E8GUrgS31OWA06ku0kMWkUSN1OiPLeCmnac"></a>
I'm heading into year 5 of the No Buying Clothes challenge, and my underwear drawer is beyond shameful. I really want to make it through at least 5 years, but I've almost reached the end of the runway on undies.<br />
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As the years have ticked past, my standards on when a pair of underwear are "worn out" have shifted drastically. Here is my current bar for retiring a set:<br />
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They are almost more of an idea than a physically useful object. Biking almost 40km round trip to work most days is hell on the crotch and lower bum area. And hundreds of washing cycles. It's actually impressive how long a decent pair of boughten underwear will last.<br />
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I am currently of the mindset that undies are best executed in stretch knit fabric, though Peter Lappin made some<a href="http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.com/2014/04/french-back-boxers-reveal-or-half-naked.html"> really sharp vintage style drawers</a> out of woven fabric that I might like to try sometime.<br />
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Some soy/cotton undyed fabric was brought in from <a href="http://www.dharmatrading.com/fabric/cotton/soy-organic-cotton-jersey-60-inch.html?lnav=default.html">Dharma Trading</a>, which I hoped to turn into underthings. One sweet thing about jersey knit is that it mostly doesn't fray at the edges, so they don't necessarily need special attention for finishing.<br />
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Not taking the time find and make a pattern from a draft, I cut up some of my worn out boxer briefs.<br />
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I tried cutting the model worn out garments apart in two ways; one with two identical but mirrored pattern pieces (below), the other using one large wraparound piece and a smaller front panel (above).<br />
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sketched out some pattern pieces, then cut some trial pieces from the blend fabric.<br />
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To make things more challenging and rewarding, when I resolved to stop buying clothes for as long as possible I also phased out my modern sewing equipment and moved to 100% human powered antique machinery, which presents some challenges for sewing knits. The two machines I have working at the moment are my <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2012/02/treadle-machine-finds-new-home.html">Wheeler and Wilson D9 treadle</a>, and a <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2013/02/handcrank-singer-99-in-house.html">handcrank Singer 99</a>. Both are straight stitchers, and do a wonderful job on wovens. There is a Necchi Supernova BU lurking in the closed but I need to make an adapter plate to get it to integrate to my W&W treadle table, which I've not done yet. It is one of the first zigzag machines and would probably do a great job on the knits, but I tried to make things work with the other machines first.<br />
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Through the <a href="http://treadleon.net/">Treadle On</a> list, I learned of a mechanical zigzag attachment which could be installed on the Singer 99. One was duly acquired through ebay, and it is very cute. It is driven with the needle bar motion, and actually grabs the fabric and sways it back and forth under the straight stitching needle.<br />
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With the W&W D9, there is no zigzag attachment that can be conveniently mounted, so the idea is to sew the stretch fabric in the expanded state with a straight stitch, so there is compliance in the seam when it is finished.<br />
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The very first pair of new undies was done with the zigzag attachment on the Singer 99. It was tough going; with enough pressure on the foot to allow the attachment to successfully sway the fabric around, it got inconsistently but extensively stretched out while passing under the needle. The layers wanted to shift as well, with the bottom strongly pulling ahead of the top. While I could also get a walking foot attachment to help with this, the topside feed and zigzag attachments can't both be installed at the same time. I finished the pair, but they are pretty ugly.<br />
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Nonetheless I put them into service, and quickly discovered some shortcomings that needed to be addressed. For one thing, I didn't put a special elastic band at the top, figuring the stretch fabric should do the job ok if folded over twice and zigzagged in place. This may have worked but in any case the top was too loose as I made it, so the undies kind of fall down inside my pants under certain circumstances. Which results in me doing a special little dance with my hands in my pockets to surreptitiously pull my droopy drawers back up. Another issue is that the fabric is pretty thin, and in a single layer doesn't do much to soften the curves of the junk pile in the front. I guess that is one reason why most commercial underwear has a double layer of fabric up in that section! So not ideal, but probably wearable if I put in some kind of drawstring or waistband, or am willing to do the panty-hitching shuffle throughout the day.<br />
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After fighting with the zigzag attachment, I decided to try the next easiest method, stretched fabric straight stitch on the W&W. For round two, I used the construction with a separate fabric panel in the front to serve as a junk smoother. For this I rounded up some scraps of cider cloth. Am I the first man to make underwear from used cider press cloth? Probably not, but it is fun to imagine I am breaking ground in the name of humankind here.<br />
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I also extended the waistline up a little and made it tighter and with more substantial foldovers for the top edge. Another sewing tool I used for the first time which helped tremendously with the tricky stretch fabric was a garment making temporary spray adhesive. This was great for keeping the seams together while sewing and hemming, and I will certainly be making more use of it in future.<br />
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The seaming itself went far easier on the treadle, and the action of the feed dogs stretched the fabric quite a bit going through such that there was some compliance in the seam afterwards.<br />
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But it wasn't enough, especially with the brought in waistline. Stretching them enough at the top edge to comfortably get them on results in popping the thread on the waistline hem seam.<br />
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The leg holes were also a little tight and awkward where they joined when sewn this way.<br />
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They had been more comfortable in the previous pair hemmed with zigzag.<br />
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I flat felled the cider cloth front panel so the edges won't fray.<br />
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This panel turned out pretty nice I thought, but my family burst out laughing when they saw it since they felt it was too close to my skin tone and at first glance it looked like I had on some ridiculous crotchless clown panties. Yes, I'm going to embarrass you with a photo.<br />
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Where else on the internet can you find pictures of overweight, bald, middle aged dads in their underwear, right? I'm actually not embarrassed, though my threshold seems to be higher than average!<br />
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But you can bet I'm going to rock these clown panties on a weekly basis. It helps that this is the alternative:<br />
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Yeah, its amazing how your standards on how good something is depend so much on what is on offer as an alternative.<br />
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Being close to a reasonable underwear design, I immediately made another pair but with an attempted modification to make the legs slightly longer and looser. It didn't really pan out and ended up a bit worse than the first pair.<br />
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On the whole, I think if I stay with knits I need to go back to zigzag; it is just too hard to build in enough stretch to the straight seam to do the trick. Probably the best thing would be to get the Necchi set up, but I've got a few things to try with the attachment on the 99 first.<br />
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My sense of the biggest issue with the basic approach using the attachment is the level of stretch and the fact that it is imbalanced, imposed by the feed dogs on the bottom and the attachment foot on top. So the adhesive will help with keeping the layers together and work to even the stretch out. Another idea is to put some temporary sizing on the fabric to inhibit stretch during assembly, or to use a temporary layer of stabilizer to accomplish the same goal. I made up some starch solution by boiling 1 tsp corn starch in 1 cup of water, but have not tried it yet. Pretty sure there is some Sulky water soluble stabilizer in one of my sewing drawers too, and I've read that paper works well but can be annoying to extract afterwards.<br />
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The jersey knit I used is rather thin, and I doubt it's service life will be very long in the intense wear environment that is the everyday reality inside my pants. We'll see how long these three pair hold up. I'll surely have to redo the waist and leg hems with zigzag at a minimum as the straight stiching pops loose. While not yet the embodiment of ultimate custom panty perfection, these are good enough to use and they are without a doubt better than the ones they are replacing.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-883722148004616014.post-75074308263097011832015-11-29T10:51:00.003-08:002020-06-23T16:26:53.692-07:00Garden Review 2015: Sunchokes, Potatoes, and Other Roots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Sunchokes</b><br />
These were the most successful root crop I grew this year. I planted two purple tubers from <a href="http://www.foodforestfarm.com/shop">Food Forest Farm</a>, I think in mid-May. One tuber in each of two 60x60cm raised boxes with lined bottoms in the front yard. Originally these were built for potatoes, but the soil there is taking a break from nightshades for a couple years.<br />
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The plants came up fast and thick from the tubers like an express delivery of JUNGLE.<br />
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They quickly buried the other plants in the boxes with them. I was expecting them to flower when other sunflowers were out in late summer since they are in the same family. But they waited until mid fall to put their attractive yellow blooms out.<br />
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Seeing them grow and flower allowed me to identify some wild ones along the bike path, and <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/foraging-minuteman-bike-path-fall.html">sample those tubers</a>.<br />
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The boxes get tons of sun and have good air circulation. But for some reason almost whatever I have in them gets powdery mildew to some degree. It devastated the curcubits I had planted there last year, and also afflicted the J chokes but not nearly as severely. I don't think it had much impact on their production of tubers, such was the vigor of these beasts.<br />
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In late October the plants had yet to die back but I was digging potatoes in the front yard with the kids and my mom and decided to yank one up and see what was hiding in the soil. Holy moly! The lush bush of a plant had a veritable medusa head of tubers dripping from it when I pulled it!<br />
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I took up the other plant and we pulled off most of the tubers. This is a lot of food from two plants. I'm impressed. After washing, this is what we had (keep in mind it is a little kid's wheelbarrow).<br />
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I guess the increase from planting to harvest was maybe 30x or even 50x, an enviable level for any crop. I get maybe 4x with potatoes and something like that from wheat as well, but with a lot more fuss.<br />
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So given how easy these were to grow and that they made substantial amount of actual food in a way that a pile of greens can't compete with, I am moved to try to like eating them more. They are just not as good as a potato or even a rutabaga. Fortunately I don't experience the digestive distress associated with their inulin content that many people seem to suffer, which explains their nickname of "fartichokes". But still, they are limited in their culinary appeal.<br />
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Raw and fresh they have a nice snappy texture, but nothing special in the taste department. Roasted, they get a bit mushy and are not amazing, though certainly edible. You can peel, boil, and mash, and they are not bad that way especially when mixed with potatoes. Peeling them is a royal pain however.<br />
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They went into an open box in the basement for a couple weeks for storage, and when I took them out many of them had already started rotting. Anyone have some good advice on how to store them, besides in the fridge? Maybe next year I'll try fermenting some in brine.<br />
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Given how rampant they grew, and how many tiny tubers I must have left in the soil when I took them up, I'm glad I confined them to these boxes and didn't put them in some other area I hope to use for anything else ever again. I could easily see it being a constant battle to reclaim an area from this plant after growing it there for one season.<br />
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<b>Crosnes/Chinese Artichokes/Mint Root</b><br />
I was pretty excited to eat these, and figured they would grow well since they are in the mint family. Early in the season they came up and grew well in the boxes with sunchokes and groundnuts (all from F<a href="http://www.foodforestfarm.com/shop">ood Forest Farm</a>), but they were overrun with the sunchokes and struggled after that. You can see them to the side of the sunchokes in the early summer pic above. When I pulled them up I did see some tiny signs of tubers but none bigger than a pea. So at least when grown with sunchokes, it is a fail.<br />
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<b>Groundnut</b><br />
One did not come up. The other one did and climbed up it's companion sunchoke for a time. You can barely see it in this picture.<br />
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Eventually I could no longer find it in the dense sunchoke thicket. When I dug up the box, there were no signs of anything except sunchokes. So maybe it got shaded out and didn't make any tubers. This companion planting/guild thing seems more difficult than it sounded in the permaculture books...<br />
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I think I'll give them another try, next year from Fedco.<br />
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<b>Potatoes</b><br />
After reading Carol Deppe's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Gardener-Production-Self-Reliance-Uncertain/dp/160358031X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448475886&sr=8-1&keywords=the+resilient+gardener">The Resilient Gardener</a>, I was inspired to put more emphasis on potatoes and corn.<br />
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So I set aside quite a bit of space in various beds, all of which were planted later in the season but side by side with the spring greens. I put in the seed potatoes between the greens in early May. All of them were German Butterball. In the front the plants jumped up and grew fast along with the remaining greens.<br />
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After the greens came out, I put hay over the rest of the bed to keep down weeds and keep in moisture. Here are the two patches of potatoes in the grain maze beds in back.<br />
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I overestimated the amount of seed tubers I needed, and gave away the extras to neighbors and anyone interested at work. At the end of the season several people graciously gave me some of the potatoes they grew from that seed.<br />
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The plants got big, especially in front, and made some potato berries which I can't recall seeing before.<br />
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The ones in back didn't do quite as well, but did grow with reasonable success, especially for that challenging location.<br />
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One lovely fall day in late October, after Child 3 and Child 2 cut up a fallen tree branch, we dug the tubers. Child 3 likes to use the biggest saw I've got, a large ryoba, though last night he told me he's too good for saws now and wants use use an axe instead.<br />
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Child 2 and my mom helped collect the potatoes as I brought them up with a fork.<br />
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The plants were long dead and dried up, so I'm sure I could have dug them sooner. But we also get a CSA, and they had been giving us quite a few potatoes, so I let these lie until later. But I'm thinking I could have maybe run some fast fall greens in those beds if I had dug the potatoes at the earliest opportunity.<br />
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There are many small potatoes, but that is typical for me. No real disease or insect issues. They did grow better and make more and bigger tubers in the front yard box than in the grain maze beds, but the disparity was not as pronounced as it was for the spring greens planted in both spots.<br />
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<b>Carrots</b><br />
The carrots didn't start as well as last year, I think because of the relatively dry spring. I wasn't as attentive about watering over the long period it takes carrot seed to germinate. Though in the end we got a decent amount of carrots. When you get down to it, there are not that many things better than carrots.<br />
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Child 3 wanted a little space to grow his own carrots, so he took a little 1/3 meter space between the tomato trellis and the center terrace walk. Child 1 planted carrots in the front of her 1 meter square.<br />
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And I put down carrots in the front of the two squares hosting the tomatoes at their north edge. We probably had about two square meters of carrots in all. You can see why I was not optimistic about the carrots in the photo below.<br />
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We tried three different types of carrots this year. Caracas, Atlas, and pelleted Laguna seed, all from Johnny's. The Atlas (a little ball type carrot) did not grow that well and the couple which got to any size had an issue with splitting. Here is Child 1's plot with the carrots to the left, probably mid June. She used mostly Laguna with a few Atlas. Strawberries, Sea Kale, Comfrey, and Lovage in background to the left. Lavender to the right, basil and corn in the same bed as the carrots. Next bed to the rear has asparagus (or should have it, but is pretty bare in this photo), and this year garlic and leeks.<br />
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Caracas was better performing than Atlas, but not as good as Laguna. I don't know if it was the variety or the fact that the seed was pelleted, but the Laguna grew best and made the most roots. In any case the pelleting made it easier for the kids to plant and it needed less thinning.<br />
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Carrots are great for the kids because unlike radishes they like to eat them. They love to pull them up and wash them too.<br />
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We picked a few in late spring, but then I had sort of lowered my expectations for the carrots and just didn't think about them for a while. Finally we pulled the rest up in August, and I was surprised by how big they had gotten, without being woody. You can see some good sized Caracas towards the front here.<br />
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After eating some fresh and putting more in the fridge for near term use, I put these in the basement in my meat aging chamber.<br />
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We did use most of them up, but I don't think the meat aging chamber was good for storing them. This is what the stragglers looked like by fall (dumped in the compost bowl).<br />
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<b>Radish</b><br />
As I mentioned in the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/garden-review-2015-greens-herbs-tokyo.html">greens post for this season</a>, we planted quite a lot of Shunkyo Long in spring, but the roots were all destroyed by some bug, I think root maggots. We also planted a few Easter Egg, which mostly came out ok.<br />
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<b>Skirret</b><br />
I was inspired by pictures of Skirret fries and so got two plants from <a href="http://www.foodforestfarm.com/shop">Food Forest Farm</a>. I put them in the corners of the square occupied by the Lovage on the east side of the terrace. They did ok, I guess probably better than average for the grow-challenged east side of the yard. When I dug them in the fall though, the roots were tiny, so I replanted them in the Lovage square on the west side of the terrace. We'll see if they get anywhere by next fall.<br />
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<b>Beets</b><br />
As discussed in the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/garden-review-2015-greens-herbs-tokyo.html">greens post</a>, I planted a dual purpose beet (Early Wonder Tall Top) in mid-summer. In front I put them where I had pod radish in the spring, and in back I put them where the garlic had been. We got some roots from them, though not a ton.<br />
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<b>Horseradish</b><br />
As I mentioned in the <a href="http://tooling-up.blogspot.com/2015/11/garden-review-2015-greens-herbs-tokyo.html">greens post</a> I grew these from some starts I got off the <a href="http://permies.com/forums/c/5/">permies.com</a> forum. The ones in the micro-orchard did great; too great actually so I'm planning on moving them in the spring. Here is one flopping down in fall, on top of some nearby leeks. It really is a big plant.<br />
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I dug one from the orchard, but it broke not too far down; probably will be trying to grow back like mad next year. Guess I should have dug it more before pulling it up. Here is Child 2 toting it around the back yard.<br />
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And Child 3 cutting the leaves off.<br />
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We cleaned up the root and put it in the fridge. It is zingy!<br />
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The ones I put in the maple sidebar all came up but eventually died. Sheesh, what is it about that maple sidebar?<br />
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Over thanksgiving we hauled and spread a 3 yard delivery of compost I bought in from Cambridge Bark & Loam. My arms, shoulders, and back right now can affirm that a 3 yard pile is quite a bit of organic material! Luckily I had helpers.<br />
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We layered it on to that maple sidebar, so hopefully after a couple years of that it will respond.<br />
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<br />Hollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413198575104625457noreply@blogger.com3