Category Archives: garden

Deer Carnage, or Why You Need a Wire Fence

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Having a garden in the Sierra foothills is an interesting give and take with Mother Nature. Consider the following:

  • we have abundant sunshine and warm days but little rain, so we need a drip irrigation system
  • the hills and pine trees make our yard very scenic, however it was a challenge to find some reasonably flat land with good sunlight for our garden
  • we have tons of wildlife, so bees readily find our crops and pollinate them, but there are deer out there every night wanting to eat our plants

That last point was driven home a bit over a month ago. I ventured down to the garden while Kathleen was out of town and immediately found something wasn’t quite right.

Deer Got The Fence

Yeah, the plastic “deer resistant” fence had been broken right near a post and at least one of our “furry friends” had managed to feat upon our plants.

Deer Chowed the Peppers

What was once a bunch of nicely growing pepper plants had become mere green sticks overnight.

Deer Eaten Berry Plants

And our previously amazing tomato forrest was quite leafless and barren down low. The berry plants looked even worse!

Needless to say, I spent some time patching it up that night and we were thankful they left most of the tomatoes in place. Given sufficient time, light, and water they had a good chance of recovering and continuing to produce.

The next day I picked up Kathleen from Nevada and, after arriving home, she headed down to the graden to see the damage for herself. And wouldn’t you know it? The deer had broken in again!

Clearly we needed to take things up a notch or two. So I orded three fifty foot rolls of the tallest wire fence that we could get at Lowe’s. Kathleen picked it up that afternoon and we installed it that night.

It’s been a bit over a month now and the garden has been deer-free. Many of the plants have recovered and some are even producing new fruit. As long as the cold nights hold off long enough, we still expect to have a pretty good (though not great) harvest this season.

Lesson learned: Deer will chew through plastic fence to get to your garden. Use wire fence. There a are a few more pictures available if you’re curious.

Paleo Friendly Thai Beef Soup Recipe

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Tonight, we had an awesome Paleo friendly Thai beef soup. The recipe was inspired by our original Thai Chicken Soup Recipe and also the ingredients we have had on hand.  One of the key ingredients is our homemade beef broth which was made from the bones of the cows at Mourning Dove Ranch.  For weeks this summer, Jeremy has been making many batches of this fresh broth.  The aroma from this process has made both of us salivate as we think of grass-fed steaks!  Another inspiration has been the ingredients from our garden.  We are growing Thai basil, lemongrass and habanero in our grow camp.  Finally, the Paleo friendly part comes from our Swiss chard that we grew in the spring and the we preserved by blanching and freezing in early summer.  We tried Swiss chard in chicken soup and were struck by how the texture and taste of the chard seemed surprisingly similar to traditional noodles used in beef and chicken soups.  I knew we had an unbeatable combination to work with.

Ingredients include:

  • 2 lbs. stewing beef
  • 6 cups of homemade beef broth
  • 4 cups filtered water
  • 1 cup of frozen Swiss chard
  • 1 cup of chopped carrots
  • 1 cup of chopped celery
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 3 cloves of minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
  • 1 cup Thai basil
  • 1 cup cilantro
  • 1/4 cup of minced lemongrass
  • 2 habanero minced
  • sea salt

Add the broth and water to a soup pot. Bring it to a simmer on the stove. Add the stewing beef. Let them cook for 20 minutes or so. Add celery and carrots.

In a pan, brown onion and garlic with coconut oil. Add the mixture to the soup.

Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes more. Stir occasionally. Add habenero, and lemongrass.  Add frozen chard.  Add sea salt to taste.

Serve this in large bowls. Add basil and cilantro.

We enjoyed the spices and heat of this modified Thai dish.  Try it tonight.

Healthy Pickle Recipe

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This summer, we are growing heirloom cucumbers known as lemon cucumbers.  As you might expect, they look like lemons but taste similar to traditional cucumbers.  We planted just one plant this year but now have dozens of these ready for picking.

As with other summer vegetables, they come in waves and do not last long in the fridge to eat with salads so I looked for ways to preserve them.  I found a wonderful and healthy pickle recipe in Nourishing Traditions that converts this summer vegetable into a healthy probiotic.  This recipe is also quick and easy to make.

Ingredients include:

  • 3 lemon cucumbers sliced with a 1/4 inch thick
  • 2 tablespoon of chopped fresh dill
  • 4 tablespoons of whey
  • 1 tablespoon of mustard seed
  • 1 cup of filtered water
  • 1 tablespoon of sea salt

A note on making whey:  Leave raw milk at room temperature for 1 to 4 days until milk solids separate from the semi-clear liquid (aka. whey).  Separate the whey from the milk solid by pouring the mixture through a cheese cloth.

In a bowl, add all ingredients.  Fold the mixture.  Then place in a clean wide mouth quart-sized jar.  Make sure that the vegetables are covered with fluid.  The fluid level should be one half of an inch from the top of the jar.  Close the jar lid tightly and let this sit at room temperature for 3 to 5 days.  Then move to the refrigerator for long term storage.

We have had the pickles by themselves and on top of grass-fed burgers.  We like the taste.  They have the taste of a dill pickle but are soft (not crisp like store-bought pickles).  You can use the same recipe to make pickles from other types of cucumbers (sliced or whole).

Enjoy!

More Garden Production

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While Kathleen is out of town this week (more on that later), I wandered down to the graden to see how things are doing…

Wel, the tomatoes are getting even taller (some are 8 feet now!), some strawberries were ready, a second eggplant is coming along, and our berries are starting to ripen.

Japanese Eggplant

 

Strawberries to Pick

The next 4-6 weeks should be quite a bounty of food!

Secrets Behind Tomato Success

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Starting in mid-May this year, we planted 17 heirloom tomatoes. Eleven different varieties in all. Varieties include Green Grape, Black Cherry, Green Zebra, Japanese, Purple Cherokee, Black Krim, Yellow Boy, Black Price, Siberian, Red Zebra and  Pineapple. Earlier, we were discouraged from growing tomatoes due to warnings that the area is too cool for tomatoes.  We are at three thousand feet in the foothills of the Sierras. The comments came from a champion Heirloom tomato grower. We decided to try anyway.

Tomatoes just after planting

We planted the tomatoes in two raised beds (four feet by eight feet). We used mushroom compost and manure soil from our local nursery. We planted in a sunny location (the area gets sun about 5 to 6 hours of the day). Each plant is on a dripper.

Two weeks after planting, the tomatoes doubled in size. Now, in late-July, they are seven to eight feet tall.  All are producing tomatoes. We have harvested from the Green Zebra, Green Grape, Japanese, Cherokee and Siberian plants. We have many large green tomatoes on the edge of ripening. We only lost one plant (the Red Zebra), in June, due to a cold snap. We put some other heirloom seedling in its place and they are doing well.

Our neighbors and friends have been astounded. Theirs are three feet tall and have produced limited fruit. We did do some things differently.

  • Once the plants reached two feet tall, I cut off all the branches from the bottom third that were not producing fruit.  As the plants reached six feet in height, I continued to prune. I removed most of the non-fruit bearing branches.
  • All the tomatoes are on a dripper. Aside from being in good soil and getting sun, they get watered six times a day.  In total, they get an hour of watering a day. I notice the top branches can get a little limp at noon but they always recover at night.
  • Early on, I pollinated the flowers with my finger–especially when I didn’t see a lot of bees in the garden. I do so less now becasue they are tool tall and becuase the bees are doing their job. :-)

Vendors at the Farmer’s Market have encouraged me to sell these. We expect to produce hundreds.  With heirlooms at $6 per pound, we could make a healthy profit. However, this is not really my thing. We plant to freeze and can starting in August.

Another thing to note is that we worked hard to keep out critters. We have a fence around the whole garden to keep out deer and racoon. We have fabric and aviary wire under the raised beds to keep out moles and goffers. Lastly, we found the Jays started drilling holes in some of the green tomatoes. We ended up having to cover the area with a light netting.

Do you have any tomoto growing secrets you’d like to share?

Our Garden in July

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This year, we started our summer garden in mid-May.  We planted heirloom tomatoes, peppers, chilies, herbs, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, strawberries and herbs (lemongrass, parsley, cilantro, basil, and tarragon).  We have had some outstanding successes so far and some misses.  First, our successes.

We have successfully grown 17 heirloom tomato plants (11 different varieties).  The plants themselves are between seven to eight feet in height.  We have started harvesting tomatoes from the Green Zebra, Green Grape, Japanese, Cherokee  and Siberian plants.  By the end of the summer, we expect to have harvested hundreds of tomatoes.  In a future post, I’ll write about how we grew the tomatoes (and may explain why ours are producing more fruit and growing taller than our neighbors).

Other successes so far include lemon cucumbers, chilies, bell peppers and eggplant.  The herbs are all doing well.   Noteworthy is the lemongrass.  It’s about 2.5 feet tall.  We have  a zucchini coming and we have harvested strawberries.  These however are not as prolific as the other plants.

Our onions (we planted 180) were very disappointing.  Most only grew to about an inch in diameter and then the green stalk fell over.  Also, our carrots (planted in the fall like the onions) did not grow well.  A neighbor clued us in that the soil may not be sandy enough.  I pulled the onions out recently and planted some new vegetables.  We planted snow pea and bean seeds.  Within a week, they sprouted from the ground.  We have been able to use the onions in cooking and are quite tasty.  I removed the carrots about six weeks ago.  I planted micro greens in their place and they are doing quite well.

Freezing Our Chard

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Over this past winter and spring, we’ve been growing dozens of red and green chard plants. As the sun has gotten high in the sky and the garden is getting more hours of sun, the chard has grown into quite a forest. We know that the chard will start to die off as temperatures climb into the 90s, so we decided to harvest most of it a couple weeks ago to make space for more pepper and chills.

We decided to freeze the chard mainly for use in future soups and stews.

I harvested the chard by removing clusters of plants entirely–roots and all. I removed the bases and moved the mountain of plants to the kitchen where I removed the leaves from the stems and put them into a water bath for rinsing. After several rinses we removed the chard and cut it into 1 inch pieces.

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At the same time, we boil water in some large soup pots and filled the other side of the sink with ice water. We put handfuls of the chard into boiling water for about 2 minutes, being careful not to add so much chard that it takes more than a minute or so for the water to resume boiling. Once the cooked has been cooked, we removed it with a slotted spoon and put into a strainer. We then put it into the ice bath for 30 seconds.

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Finally, we removed the chilled chard and place it into a ziplock bags, labeled them, and put them into the freezer. Surprisingly, the entire mountain of chard was reduced to 5 quart sized ziplock bags.

It takes a bit of time to do all this, but it feels good to know we have several meals worth of greens from our own garden in the freezer and we can use them anytime we feel the need.

Deepening My Understanding of Holism

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Over the past two years while living in Pine Mountain Lake, I have developed an understanding of the holistic philosophy that is much deeper than appreciating the beauty of Nature.  In the beginning of this period, we met the Oler’s who encouraged a natural approach to health.  At the same time, Jeremy was reading voraciously on the topic.  Both encouraged us to change out eating habits.  Now we eat more protein and fat – as our ancestors did.  We look more carefully at the sources of our food and buy as much as we can from local farms who farm responsibly.  We take supplements made from real food.  We incorporate natural probiotics into our diet.  We strive to eliminate sugar and other toxins from out diet.

Over this time, we’ve become healthier people.  We also came to understand the trickle down effects of departing from the traditional lifestyle (the lifestyle we evolved from) and how this impacts our health and the health of the environment.   Non-traditional behaviors include current industrial farming practices and industries that pollute our air, water and soil just to name a few.  Fueled by feeling great, we both strive to learn more and do more to have a positive impact on the environment, since doing so will eventually benefit our health–thus forming a positive feedback loop.

We now:

  • recycle our green waste
  • grow our own food (when possible)
  • buy locally grown food (eggs, cheese, milk, fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken, pork)
  • care for the woods on our property
  • give to charities
  • support our health through holistic means [this feels self-referential]
  • communicate our knowledge and ideas through this blog
  • meditate daily

We value businesses that are responsible to the environment.  We value leaders that see the connection of today’s actions on future generations.  I now understand that it is NOT ONE thing but instead it is EVERYTHING that matters.  One change to the system, our planet, has cascading effects that can impact each of us.

I have gained a greater appreciation of the whole of holism.  I now see how my choices in what I do and how I spend my time can give me a greater of connection to the whole and have a positive impact on our future.

Planning for a lot of Tomatoes

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Since planting our summer garden 2 weeks ago, our heirloom tomato plants have doubled in size.  Some have even tripled.

Here’s the original:

Tomatoes just after planting

And now:

Garden on May 27th

We also have our first tomatoes growing and it’s still May.

First Two Tomatoes

We expect to have a growing season that will go into October. Tomato yield depends on many factors such as growing conditions and variety. However, on average, a tomato plant can produce anywhere from 10 (large variety) to 100 (cherry type). We have 17 tomato plants and given the varieties, it may be possible to Have a yield of 650 this year. That is a lot of tomatoes!

In preparation, we are coming up a list of ways to use them and ways to store them. Our list so far includes freezing and canning for soups, stews, sauce and chilli. We would also like to make several batches of fermented salsa. And finally, we can dry them with our dehydrator.

Have you stored home grown tomatoes? What works best for you?

Protecting Biodiversity in Peru

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Industrial farming practices throughout the world have significantly reduced the biodiversity of our vegetables and fruits (up to 75%) resulting in the increased probability that the world’s long term food supply can be wiped out by future pests, disease and climate change.  A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on the extreme measures that countries around the world are going to in order to protect the biodiversity of our food.  Another story that I read recently “Protecting Potato Diversity in Peru” caught my eye and I thought I would share to highlight the international concern over this problem.

In Peru, a film is currently being developed to document protecting the potato biodiversity in that country.  At the heart of this effort is Lima’s International Potato Center.  Established in 1971, the center is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.  The center currently maintains the largest collections of potato and sweet potato in the world.

The center works with farmers to maintain the diversity of native potatoes through its gene bank.  Currently, the bank houses more than 7,000 potato and wild potato samples.  In addition, potato breeders at the center work with farmers to develop new breeds that are resistant to disease and have a higher nutritional content.