the wheel barrow is an excellent mixing receptacle

The potting soil is the least expensive and easiest component to acquire, you just want to make sure it isn’t too coarse.  You need a pretty fine texture to make good blocks that hold together.  The peat moss is for lightness and water retention.  Compost adds slow release nutrient, if it is home compost I would screen it well and make sure it is fully rotted and broken down.  The sand (or perlite) lightens the soil, the dash of lime balances out the acidity of the peat moss.  You are compressing two or three times the amount of material into a soil block that you would put into a seeding tray, so the sand or perlite is key for enabling the block to take up water easily even though the block is so dense.   I add warm water to the mix, for some reason peat moss absorbs warm water more readily than cold.  Plus it is more pleasant to mix.  You want the consistency to resemble cooked oatmeal, so considerably wetter than what I typically put into seedling trays.  If cold water is all you have, mix and let stand for a few hours before blocking.  Once the material is mixed, dip your blocker into a bucket of water and shove and twist it into the mix until all the cells are stuffed full.  Scrape the excess off on the edge of your container and then block into your tray.  I use a capillary mat (the felty stuff under the blocks) but I think you can get away without one.

Finally, you want to space the blocks out so they don’t touch, this way your plants will air prune their roots instead of growing into each other.  I will repot these tomatoes into quart containers (I often use old yogurt containers or sawed off milk cartons) before transplanting out, as they have to be pampered and kept warm until May.  Most other things I start in blocks go straight into the garden.  Here is a shot of a homemade block tweezer (those of you who carpenter, another excellent use of the shim).

And here are the block tweezers in use:

At the moment I only have the 1 1/2″ 4 cell blocker, they make a bigger stand up version for large scale production, and you can make blocks in several sizes.  This is a good general size for most of my needs.

Then the blocks are seeded up and go to the germination stand in the basement:

I have also tried my hand at making yogurt, as I just got a gallon of Amazing milk from Charlotte at Champoeg Creamery.  Yogurt keeps longer, and I eat it for breakfast most weekdays, so it is a good way for me to use up a gallon of milk without having any of it go bad.  Charlotte handles her milk meticulously, so it usually keeps for a couple of weeks.  We also made a fantastic gratin for dinner the other day.  This is a completely different beast than homogenized milk.  Anyway, here is everything you need for making yogurt:

That’s it.  A quart of milk, (this should work with store bought milk too), a tablespoon of live culture yogurt, a small cooler, a heavy saucepan, a thermometer (optional really), and some extra jars.

Heat the milk to 180 degrees, stirring occasionally (ie scald the milk, by heating until fine bubbles form around the edges of the pan and it is just too hot to touch).  Then let cool to 140 (just warm enough to dip a clean finger in comfortably) and stir in the tablespoon of yogurt.  While the milk is heating, boil a kettle of water and pour the boiling water into a small cooler to preheat.  Fill the jar you are going to make the yogurt in with hot water from the tap to preheat.  Once the milk has cooled to the point where you can add the yogurt dump the hot water out of the cooler and pour the milk mixture into your preheated quart jar and seal with a clean lid.  Fill your other quart jars with hot water from the tap (not too hot to touch), put lids on those and place them in the cooler as well.  You can wrap your yogurt jar in a clean dish towel if you like.  Put the lid on the cooler and place in a warm area where it won’t be disturbed for 8-12 hours.  Voila, delicious yogurt is yours, and it will keep in the fridge for weeks.  Starting with a fabulous product like Charlotte’s milk produces a homemade yogurt that really is miles above anything you can find at the store.  Truly nectar of the gods.

I cannot tell you how delicious this is. You have to try it for yourself.

And now, because you have been so good, baby bunnies:

There are seven bunnies in there. Really!

good momma

cheers!

In other news….saw a property this weekend that could be The One.  Still working out funding….and need to research the water situation.  But, great soils (Jory) perfect S-SE aspect, and a location that will work for us.  Finally got a solid count on baby bunnies, and we have 7.  2 black, 4 spotty, and one with perfect Blanc de Hotot coloring (white with a black eye ring).  They are still tucked away in the bunny box but I hope to have pics later this week.

cheers everyone!

Some Terms and Definitions for the uninitiated:

Nuc.  Shorthand for a 5 frame mini or nucleus hive.  Often purchased in the spring by beekeepers to start a new colony.

TBH.  Top Bar Hive.  A simple type of hive (usually with a horizontal orientation) that has neither frames nor foundation.

Warre Hive.  A vertically oriented type of top bar hive, named for its french inventor Abbe Warre.

AFB.  American Foul Brood, a bacterial disease of honeybee brood. Very serious and easily spread among colonies.

Chalkbrood.  A fungal disease of honeybee brood.  An otherwise healthy colony can usually overcome this.

K wing.  A wing deformity caused by a virus.  Usually indicates a a heavy Varroa mite load.

bee with deformed wing virus

Varroa Mite.  A mite that parasitizes honeybee brood and adults by sucking the bees blood.

Tracheal Mite.  A microscopic parasite that lives in the breathing tubes of honeybees.

Nosema.  A microsporidian that parasitizes the gut of adult honeybees.  Two types:  N. apis causes severe diarrhea.  N. ceranae weakens the foragers causing them to die in the field.  The undernourished colony soon follows.

Walk away split.  A way of making increase:  Take a frame of eggs, two frames of brood and two frames of honey and pollen and put them in a nuc box.  Shake in some nurse bees, double check that you have not also taken the queen, and then walk away.  In four weeks, check to see that you have a new laying queen.

The Zenger Farm apiary is a mix of hive types and we also have sourced bees from caught swarms and locally sourced commercial nucs.  Two small swarms (one queenless) were combined in a Langstroth hive, the other 2 swarms went into a Horizontal Top Bar hive and a Warre.  4 hives were started with the commercial nucs.  1 hive was made up of the tiny remnants of two colonies that was all we had left at the end of last winter.  In 2010, we did no mite treatments of any kind, nor did we feed the bees consistently over winter.  In 2011 we decided to do mite counts, give all the hives powdered sugar treatments (except the TBH), feed grease patties with Honey Bee Healthy in fall and spring, and keep better records.  We also sent bees from one hive to an OSU lab to be tested for tracheal mites and nosema spores.

I grouped the hives by source for easier comparison:  Hives are Langstroth with regular frames and foundation unless otherwise indicated.

The Commercial Nucs

Hive #1   installed 4/12/11  Did not survive.

Had funny moldy smell.  Some bees with Kwing.  Found AFB and burned colony 5/21/11.

Hive #3  installed 4/12/11  Best producer of honey in 2011.

Cranky temperament.  Good brood pattern.  Some bees with K wing.

4/30 /11 second deep added

5/26/11 2 supers added

8/27/11 harvested 2 ½ supers of honey.

Ended up feeding back 5 frames of honey from Hive #6, which the bees transferred to deeps between 9/24 and  10/29 after scoring.  (The danger of a late honey harvest).  Still alive, feeding Drivert as of 1/21/11.

Hive # 6  installed 4/12/11 Only hive with chalkbrood in 2011.  Also tested this hive for tracheal mites and nosema.

Smaller population, spotty brood pattern.  Probably superseded its queen between 4/12 and 5/21.

5/26/11 second deep added

7/12/11 added super.

9/22/11 5 ½ frames filled with honey removed and fed to #3.

Chalkbrood seen 7/20.

Bees from this hive were tested for tracheal mites and nosema.  The bees tested had an average of 1,000,000 nosema spores, but no tracheal mites.

Still alive, feeding drivert as of 1/21/12.

1/31/12 A fair pile of dead bees at entrance.  Other hive entrances seemed clear.

Hive #7  Installed 5/26/11 (replacement nuc for #1)  Did not survive.

Poor brood pattern but could be due to weather, populous.

6/25/11  second deep added

7/12/11  added super

8/27/11 removed one super, no record of amount of honey harvested.

Feisty bees.  9/24/11 Very high Varroa count:  250 mites over 2 days.

1/21/11 Possible dead out, reason yet to be determined.

The survivors of 2010

Hive #4  Combined remains of 2 hives from 2010.

6/15/11  Added second deep

7/12/11  Added super

8/27/11  Harvested full super, should have added a second!

1/3/12  Hive felt very heavy, was very active.  Currently our strongest hive.

1/21/11  Still alive, feeding drivert.

swarm ready for capture...or adoption I should say

The Caught Swarms

Hive #2  The Warre Hive

7/12/11  Installed swarm in single hive box.

8/26/11 box filled with comb.  No honey harvest from a colony this small and late.

1/21/11  Still alive, feeding fondant

Hive #5 

5/5/11 Swarm hived in Nuc

5/10/11 combined with queenless second swarm in hive deep

5/26/11  Added second deep

6/25/11  added super, although second deep was only ½ drawn out.

8/27/11  3 super frames full, 2 others drawn.   Later remarks suggest honey was fed back to the colony, but unclear.

1/21/12  still alive, feeding fondant

Hive #9  The top bar hive with observation window

5/3/11 (this is a rough guess)  Robust swarm installed in empty top bar hive.

5/26/11  Swarm has built out 10 combs.

6/25/11 16 bars built out.  Crosscombed.  Attempted to move entrances from center of hive to end.

2/5/12  Can see the cluster through the window and they are still alive.  Will attempt to feed some fondant from below.

This has been the almost zero management hive, along with the Warre.  No honey harvest the first year.

Laura’s synopsis of 2011:

Nucs pros and cons:

Our success rate with the commercial nucs was 50% as of January 21^st.  I would suggest we try to find another source of locally produced nucs for future purchases.  Every purchased nuc showed showed signs of at least one of the following: K-wing virus (indicates heavy mite loads), AFB, Chalkbrood, high nosema spore counts (#6) and very high Varroa mite counts (#7).  That said, our best honey producer was Hive #3, which gave us 2 ½ supers of honey.  Of course, we ended up feeding a half super back and are feeding sugar now.

Honey Harvest:

We waited to harvest honey until late August, due to the weird weather year we had and the slightly delayed honey flow.  However, waiting this long to harvest made it harder for the bees to backfill their deeps with honey in time for winter, which is one of the reasons we think we are light and feeding now.  Our best producer was Hive #3, a foothills honey nuc.  The second best producer was probably Hive #4, our hive of survivors of 2010.  Third best was probably Hive #7, although the records are unclear, I am assuming we harvested that fully capped super.  We need to be more precise in our documentation of honey harvest, and we should really harvest in late July to give the bees enough time to backfill the deeps for winter.  No signs of disease were noted in either the survivor hive #4 or the caught swarms #2 warre, #5 lang and #9 TBH (which doesn’t guarantee they weren’t there).  All of those colonies are still alive as of 1/21/11, but we are not out of the winter woods yet.  We will have a better sense of survival rates in April.  We also fed back honey from a hive with Chalkbrood (#6) to a hive without Chalkbrood (#3) possibly spreading the disease.

Mite counts and sugar treatments:

We should also do our mite counts and powdered sugar treatments in August, not September.  We want to knock back mite loads well before the population starts to decline in the fall, which will also give the bees a healthier workforce to backfill the deeps for winter in August.  We should try to do mite counts on all the hives and take notes on what those counts are.  It would be good to compare the nucs with the swarms, and the foundationless bees with those on foundation.  Some hives aren’t set up for easy mite counting (the warre and the tbh).  One of the reasons the caught swarms were fairly disease free (as far as we know, we only tested #6 for nosema and tracheal mites, for example) is that swarming breaks the Varroa mite breeding cycle, giving the bees a leg up on the mites for a season.  Mites increase stress which makes all the other diseases we saw more prevalent, and DWV (K-wing virus) is introduced to the bees from Varroa.  So it will be interesting to compare the swarms versus the nucs over several beekeeping seasons.  If our bees make it through to April this will be something to track.

Things I learned:

Things of note that popped out for me:  the nuc with the best initial brood pattern (#3) was our biggest honey producer.  This record also makes clear how much faster nucs can build up compared to swarms (even swarms on drawn comb).  Package bees should be comparable to swarms.  Swarms that are starting from scratch and building natural comb are of course basically left behind the first season and except for some rare cases unable to produce any honey for harvest.  Losing a queen also knocks a colony back significantly….compare the honey harvest from #5 (caught swarm installed 5/5/11) and #6 (nucleus that superseded its queen sometime in late April or early May).  They are basically the same.

Things I would change or try in 2012:

Things I would be interested in trying in 2012, assuming we carry most of our colonies through the late winter:

Find another source for local nucs

Harvest honey in late July, not late August, keeping better records.

Also I would add 2 supers to the strong hives, not just one.

Mite counts and treatments (if we so choose) in early August, not September, keeping better records.

Making up nucs or walk away splits in the spring (April) to reduce swarming and possibly raise funds….ideally from hive #4, maybe also #3 and #7.

Starting to transition at least one Lang to natural comb (in the deeps).

Raising our own queens in mating nucs in August.

Comparing mite loads between hives that came from nucs vs swarms

“ “ “ between colonies on natural comb vs foundation

My first plan is to start to consolidate my equipment and make things more user friendly and interchangeable (in my household, this means cutting down from four hive systems to two or three).  My foundationless bees are all going into Warre style vertical hives, and I think we will also run a couple of hives in Langstroths (my husband’s preferred method) as well.  Of course, I hope to convert those to foundationless comb over time.  One of my favorite online beekeeping authors, Michael Bush, has consolidated the info on his website into books on foundationless beekeeping.  I haven’t read them yet, but feel confident I can recommend them as I recommend his website all the time.  If you have Langstroth gear, but are interested in keeping bees on natural comb, this might be a great resource for you.  It has useful information for Top Bar beekeepers as well.

warre style hive

So, I am building a few Warre hives for myself, as well as an 8 frame Michael Bush style Langstroth, and hopefully funding the projects by selling off the Top Bar Hives I have (both new and used) on Craigslist.  I hope to build some extra’s that I can use to start small swarms in to either sell or move to the farm, depending on how the land hunt goes.

If you are thinking about keeping bees, now is the time to get your ducks in a row.  If you are ordering nucs or packages, look into placing those orders this month.  If you want to start your colonies with swarms, look into a swarm catching class and start networking with the local beekeeping community.  If you want to take a beekeeping class, look into that now as well, bee schools and classes usually start in February, and here in Portland they fill up fast.  Decide what kind of equipment you want to use, and order or build that now.  April and the bees will be here before you know it!

Here is an exploded view of a typical Langstroth hive with a single deep, a queen excluder, and two honey supers.

Here is a collection of resources for equipment and classes in the area.  Note:  I have not taken classes at all of these venues, so cannot personally guarantee the quality of the classes offered, except for the one I am teaching, of course!

Beekeeping classes in the Portland area for 2012: (check websites for dates and times)

Zenger Farm:  I am teaching beekeeping 101 and a swarm catching class, Tom Lea is teaching a beekeeping 101 and a bee handling class at Zenger this spring.  Class fees are a little higher, but the additional fees go to support Zenger Farm’s great programs, including the Zenger Community Bee Project.  Tom has been keeping bees for years, and helped form the Zenger bee group.

Beethinking:  Matt Reed started a brick and mortar shop this year in Sellwood that specializes in Top Bar and Warre hives, and he usually schedules several classes on Top Bar Beekeeping throughout the year.   Beethinking is a good place to go in Portland for Natural Beekeeping equipment and supplies.  Matt also catches and occasionally sells swarms.

Ruhl Bee Supply:  Ruhl usually hosts several beekeeping classes every spring, as well as classes on Mason Bees.  They tend to fill up very quickly so sign up ASAP.  In the past these classes have been focused on beekeeping in Langstroth equipment, though that may be changing.  The classes I took there were extremely thorough and informative.  Ruhl sells Langstroth equipment, but is also branching out into natural beekeeping supplies and hive bodies as well.  Ruhl sells locally sourced nucs and package bees from California.  They sell out quickly, especially the nucs, so get your deposit in early.

Glen Andresen:  Glen has taught classes for years through the Oregon Department of Sustainability. Classes usually include three visits to Glen’s apiary over the beekeeping season, so there should be lots of good opportunity for bee handling.  Glen is very well respected in the local beekeeping community.

Livingscape Nursery:  Livingscape hosts several beekeeping classes taught by Tom Lea, as well as classes on Mason Bees.  Livingscape carries some beekeeping equipment and supplies.  Livingscape also sells bees in the spring.

Other Beekeeping Classes in the Region:

Willamette Valley Beekeepers Association:  WVBA’s Bee School is Feb 16th, 21st and 25th, at Chemeketa Community College in Salem.

Astoria Bee School:  A comprehensive all day class at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, March 17th.

Friendly Haven Rise Farm:  Beekeeping classes with a biodynamic focus, located in SW Washington.  I believe they offer classes monthly, each month focusing on a different topic.

20 acres total, 13 acres of good class II soils, killer view, perfect location, and a double wide that I haven’t seen the inside of…..yet. This is right at the top of what I think I can afford, and there is not an outbuilding or a fencepost to be had anywhere on the property.  I am fortunate in that I will have a large down payment, a great credit score and still quite a bit of equity in my little house, so hopefully the bank will see things my way, but the fact that the house is an older double wide may be a deal breaker for a loan.  But I won’t know until I ask, things have changed profoundly since I last went to get prequalified.  The guy who owns this place is pretty savvy in my opinion:  he rents the house for 15000$ a year, gets a small income from a few acres of christmas trees, and rents the rest of the arable property to a local farmer who is paying the owner to keep the place in shape.  So this place is probably generating somewhere from $16-18000/year to cover $1500 in taxes and whatever maintenance he needs to do to keep his trees trimmed and his renters happy.  Plus he logged the wooded acreage (much to the detriment of the small stream on the south side of the property) and cashed that in last year.

In contrast, I looked at a farm last week that was 37 acres of good soils, no water rights, with 20 acres leased to christmas tree farmers.  Ole Ma and Pa were living in the doublewide, so I am guessing little or no income was being generated there, and the rental income on 20 acres of trees was $3000/ year.  Except for the house, the farm was in great shape, so someone was putting a lot of effort into keeping the place mowed and presentable.  Taxes were minimal, so that place too is probably holding its own financially, but certainly not being maximized the way this little farm in the picture is.  I will have my work cut out for me dealing with this land’s owner if it comes to that.

So far, here are my criteria for looking for land:

Non negotiables:

Class II or better soils, at least five acres.

Water rights to irrigate, at least five acres. (This is the major impediment of agricultural land hunting in the west)

12-20 acres total (or more), so I have room for a woodlot, pastured critters, and orchard in addition to the 5 acres of vegetables.

Tolerable housing on site with a good well or public water supply.

Some slope to the property, and SE aspect.

Well out of flood zones.

Within an hour’s commute of Portland.

On a quiet road, preferably a dead end road.

Mortgage payment equal or less than what we pay now.

Good neighbors.

Reasonably good access to salmon and steelhead fishing (a happy husband is a happy life)

No major polluters nearby (big conventional ag farms, big nurseries, industry).

zoned EFU.

Negotiables:

Running water on property. Creek, springs.

Pond or possibility of a pond in future.

Backs up to forest land.

Outbuildings, especially functional shop and barn buildings.

A place nearby to ride horses.

Fencing and other useful infrastructure.

View.

Farm that is for the most part a blank slate, though I do tend to like places with old orchards and outbuildings.  20 acres of overgrown christmas trees or blight ridden hazelnuts means years of work just to clear for pasture (though it would save me planting the woodlot).

Interesting things I have learned so far:

Christmas tree farms generally indicate good soils (who knew?).  Same with grass seed production (although at some times of year it can be hard to tell what is in grass seed and what is in hay).  The best soils in the state are tied up in growing seed for America’s lawns and christmas trees for America’s holiday decor.

The Soil Survey website is an amazing storehouse of information.  You can look up basically any address in the country and see what type and classification of soils it has.  Now those are some tax dollars well spent.

I don’t really want to live on a pancake flat valley farm.

Rental income from a christmas tree farm is pretty minimal ($150/acre if the contract I saw is typical) although it is guaranteed income for 6-8 years.

There are a lot of dark, crooked, rotten old houses out there that should probably just be set on fire.

Finding information on domestic wells can be very challenging.  Many folks are still getting their water from hand dug wells.  Caveat: you can apparently use an old hot tub pump to pump water from your hand dug well.  For water right information you need to make a Water Right Information Search on the OR water resources department website.  It is most helpful to have the Township Range and Section information on the property.  Otherwise, you will need the name of the original landowner who applied for water rights on that land.  You still may not find what you need, and have to go visit the county Watermaster for more information.

Deep wells in Yamhill County west of HWY 47 generally produce salt water.

Be aware of proposed future routes of things like LNG pipelines.

The condition of the equipment, shop and the land say much about the farmer.

momma buns

We mated both does twice in 2011.  Momma bunny (who is a somewhat unwilling breeder and not very fond of Poppa bunny generally, but a good mom) had two litters of kits.  The first litter was 7 baby bunnies, the second litter was 8, for a total of 15 baby bunnies.  This was her second year of raising babies.

snacks looking for snacks

Snacks was new to the game, but was a champ and a great mom. She rather likes Poppa bunny.

poppa bunny munching raspberry canes

Her first litter ever was 11 kits, three of which she either killed or were still born, but she raised up 8 in the first batch and 10 in the second batch, for a total of 18 kits.  We gave away two kits to our niece, and butchered the rest, so produced for ourselves 31 meat rabbits.  We figured that for organic bunny kibble it costs about 7.50$ a rabbit (half a bag of bunny pellets per kit), plus maybe another dollar’s worth of hay to raise a kit from newborn to 10 weeks, which is when we typically butcher.  At somewhere around 3# a processed bunny, that is pretty cheap organic meat.  The bunnies also produce great fertilizer, which we compost for 3-6 months and then use in the garden.  Labor is not included in these costs, but it takes about 15 minutes a day to feed and water three bunny pens, and it is the same whether we have kits or not.  The bunnies also get fruit and greens from the garden, grass, apple trimmings and berry canes as a food supplement.  Commercial rabbitries will have does produce up to 5 litters a year, but my sense is that is a lot to ask of a bunny doe year in year out.  You can literally mate a doe the day after she gives birth, but that doesn’t mean I think I should.

snacks' first batch of kits

The one thing about the bunnies that I have yet to work out is that I would really like to have a larger communal play space that they can use when they are not breeding, so the does at least can keep each other company, and everyone can get more exercise.  The bunnies have big pens, but I still feel like their quality of life is less than that of the chickens, who at least get to get out and run around in the yard for a few hours.  There is an interesting article on bunny quality of life issues in the lab here.  I think these approaches could be incorporated into a meat rabbit setting without too much extra work.  Joel Salatin’s movable fryer pens are another approach to this issue of letting rabbits be rabbits, but I don’t know if the breeding adults also get to get out on grass or if it is just the young stock.  Being able to raise the young bunnies on grass would also probably reduce our overall feed costs, though it would increase the labor somewhat.  Our urban yard is currently too small for a pastured meat operation….but there may be room for a bunny play pen.

For those of you who have never eaten rabbit, well, you should.  They are delicious.  If you are like me and prefer the dark meat on a chicken or a turkey, then I guarantee you will love rabbit.  We basically cook them all the same ways we would cook a chicken.  They are excellent brined and roasted, fried in batter, or our favorite current rabbit recipe, braised with mushrooms and tomato sauce.  Here is the recipe for ‘Rabbit Marengo’, a chicken recipe adapted from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook:

1 young rabbit cut into pieces

one onion, diced small

1/4 cup white wine

mushrooms (about a cup or so?  we eyeball it)

tomato sauce (we usually use somewhere between a pint and a quart)

flour

olive oil

salt and pepper

Cut the rabbit up into pieces and dredge in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper.  In a saucepan heat olive oil and then brown the floured pieces of rabbit on both sides.  Set aside.  Add a little more oil to the pan and cook the diced onion until translucent, and then add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add the white wine and reduce for a few minutes.  In a braising pan (we use a Le Crueset braising pan but a heavy cast iron pan wit an ovenproof lid will work too) place the rabbit pieces in first and then coat with the wine/onion/mushroom mixture, and cover with tomato sauce.  Cover and braise in a 350 degree oven for about 50 minutes.

rabbit marengo

We usually serve this with homemade bread, a big green salad, and a nice local pinot noir.  My husband came home this week with a backpack full of porcini mushrooms, so I look forward to making this with some wildcrafted queen boletes soon.

crimson clover sown under dying tomato plants

One of my favorites is crimson clover, if I can get it in early enough to germinate.  This I threw under the tomato plants that I am still gleaning a few tomatoes from, in addition to some compost from the compost bins.  Clover is gorgeous, a good nectar plant for the bees if I let it go to bloom, and pretty easy to till under in the spring.  It will look puny and weak until February, when it will start to take off and fill the beds.  It does fine in our winters without any protection as long as it germinates in time.

crimson clover and rye

This is a ‘clear out the old cover crop seed and hedge your bets’ mix.  The rye is a great fall cover crop, especially if you prepped your beds too late to sow crimson clover, as rye will germinate at lower temperatures.  The two are mutually beneficial, the clover providing nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil that the rye can use, and also some support to the rye as it gets tall.  The rye gives the clover some physical protection, and seems to deter slugs somewhat (anecdotal evidence).  Rye is tougher to till under and breaks down more slowly in my experience, and of course the clover fixes more nitrogen.  Again, if I let it go, I can harvest the rye for bread flour and the bees can use the clover. I can feed all of it to the rabbits and chickens either fresh or dried.

crimson clover and wheat

Another experiment:  I threw out some organic hard red wheat berries that I got from the bulk bins for bread making with clover just to see what would happen.  I have read that store bought wheat has often been heat treated and won’t germinate, but that was not my experience here!  Same idea as the rye/clover mix.

The other cover crop I tossed out this fall was a mix of vetch, austrian pea, clover, oats and rye.  It hadn’t germinated by the time I took these photos (but it has now).  I can eat the austrian pea shoots in the spring for early greens, if I so choose.  And I have never used vetch, so that will be something new.  In the summer I have undersown with buckwheat and flax, both attractive to pollinators.  The flax has a lovely blue flower.  Again, organic ‘seed’ that I bought in the bulk section of the grocery store with good results.

I also have a patch of alfalfa going in the garden (do Not tell my husband this) as an experiment.  As someone who wants to raise organic meat I am very interested in forage plants (especially perennials) that are easy to grow and use as feed.  I have just ‘mowed’ my patch by hand and fed directly to the rabbits and chickens.  In return it will get some rabbit/chicken compost.  The alfalfa was a slow starter, needs irrigation (why it is in the raised beds with the vegetables) and plenty of lime.  It seems well established now, so I am curious to see how it does next season.

This late in the year you can still get a cover crop in.  Rye will germinate at the first opportunity either now or in the spring, and Fava beans ( I would go with the big seeded ones if you want to eat some of your cover crop next year) can be planted any time the ground can be worked.  If you want a nitrogen fixer too, you can toss out some crimson clover in the spring once things start to warm up.  Under cloche even earlier.

The final fall experiment is thanks to a suggestion from Steve Solomon’s Gardening Without Irrigation (which you can read free online here).  Let your summer planted kales grow as tall as you can all summer, then prune off all the leaves and the growing tip, and the plant will produce new branchlets of tender baby kale.  You get more leaves, and better quality.  And in the spring, raab-omania.  Here is my red russian kale producing new branchlets (I probably should trim those stems back a little further).

We shall see if this plant survives the winter after such abuse.  I have tried this before with collards with pretty good results, but not this late in the season.

Speaking of pears, the Comice had the best crop of winter pears ever this year, after the coolest rainiest crummiest spring imaginable.  The good weather window must have been open when this tree blossomed.  Winter pears can be tricky, they need a long chilling period to ripen properly.  The comice pear is in my opinion the best in hand eating pear, so it is worth the effort.  For proper ripening I chill mine by bagging the best, biggest, unblemished pears up in old grocery produce bags or ziplocs, fill the bags with my hot air as best I can and stuff them in the back of the fridge….for at least 30 days.

If you let these pears ripen on the tree they will ripen from the core outward, so when the pear appears to be ripe on the outside it is basically rotten on the inside.  Chilling somehow evens out this ripening process, allowing the fruit to ripen evenly all the way through.  You pick these pears when they still look pretty green, I picked the bulk of mine in late September, this also keeps them from getting too gritty in texture.  You want to bag them in the fridge, otherwise the fridge’s arid environment will dry them out.  When they have been chilled long enough, I take a bag out at a time and let them ripen on the counter.  My favorite way to eat a perfectly ripe comice pear is sliced fresh, and consumed along with a nice stinky blue cheese (Stilton is a classic pairing).  I also make a simple tart of pear baked with honey, a dash of cinnamon, and a few fresh rosemary leaves.  And if you have more pears than you know what to do with?  Slice them up and dry them in the food dryer, and I guarantee they will disappear.  Having a big pear harvest also is a great motivator for me to clean out the fridge, although Huz really gets the credit this round for doing the full edit of old mystery jars and long in the tooth condiments.

Here is the simple pear tart recipe:

crust:

1/2 stick butter (4 tablespoons)

2 tablespoons lard

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3-4 tablespoons ice water

filling:

2-3 perfectly ripe pears

honey

cinnamon

fresh rosemary leaves

blend the flour, sugar, salt in a bowl.  Dice up 1/4 stick of butter and using a pastry tool, break up the butter in the flour until the mixture is the texture of course cornmeal.  Add the other 1/4 stick of butter and lard (you can substitute an additional 2 tablespoons of butter if you don’t have lard) and blend until the butter and lard is the size of small peas.  Add a couple of tablespoons of water and toss gently, don’t squeeze or mix too vigorously, this will make your crust tough.  Add more water as needed until the mixture seems appropriately moist and looks a little ‘ropey’.  Place bowl in fridge to chill for about a half hour.

Slice perfectly ripe room temperature pears and toss with a few tablespoons of honey.  Let them sit for a few minutes, so the fruit can macerate slightly.

When fully chilled, make a ball of the crust mixture, and roll out the dough (I usually make 5 or 6 single serving sized crusts)on a well floured board in a circle that is about 2 inches larger in diameter than your finished tart.  Moving around the edge of the circle, fold the crust inward about 1/2 and inch or so to create a shallow cup with a scalloped edge.  Spoon an appropriate amount of pear/honey mixture in the middle of the tart, and add a few crushed leaves of fresh rosemary and a dash of cinnamon.  Brush the edges of the tarts with milk or cream and sprinkle some coarse sugar on them if you like.  Pop in the oven and bake at 400* until the crust edges are toasty brown and the pear filling looks bubbly.  Wonderful for breakfast with good strong coffee.  Also lovely for dessert with aged or stinky cheeses.

I need to stay on top of collecting the down fruit, some of which goes to the hens, but most of which is ground up in the compost grinder for faster decomposition.   This helps reduce  next year’s population of fruit pests, and also limits the likelihood of living up to this blog’s title. The big box of pear seconds has been left in the basement to soften up for a week or two, and I am hoping to press those for cider this week.  Otherwise, pear butter is not a bad secondary option (if I have enough mason jars left….)

I hail originally from the mid-south, from a small town on the outskirts of a medium sized town with both midwestern and southern sensibilities and food influences.  Kentuckians love a good hot dish as much as any Minnesotan, and grits for breakfast (preferably topped with sorghum m’lassas) as much as any Mississippian.  One of the things I loved best about the folks in my home state is the way people visit with each other, without agenda.  If you stop in, you will be offered a drink and a snack, and you will be expected to sit down and visit awhile.  Folks just aren’t in a big hurry there, and that is something I miss.  People don’t double-book the way my generation seems to even here in laid back ole Portland.  And the best thing about the visit is if you pay attention you invariably come away with an absolutely hilarious anecdote….usually told in the best straight man dead pan manner you can imagine.  My father’s cousin who is one of the most genteel old-school-proper women I know tells hands down the BEST story about having a hummer dropped in her cornfield by the local National Guard….but you will have to hear that one from her.  The lesson there:  don’t underestimate Anybody.

I have been thinking a lot about family lately….which has brought up some amusing memories of things I have learned from my parents, my father in particular.  Now, I love my father like the sun, and he is one of the people I admire most in the world.  One of the hardest things about becoming an adult for me was discovering that he was a fallible human being, just like everyone else.  (Being a daughter I am afraid I figured this out about my mother somewhat earlier).  He taught me to love horses, and to ride.  He let me have the ice cubes out of his bourbon on the rocks at a very tender age.  He taught me how to drive a stick, and line up the center of the hood of the Suburban with the edge of the road to keep in my lane, and to hitch and back a trailer.   I am pretty sure I get my fondness for large goofy dogs from him as well.  Anyway, like many men, my father could never find his wallet, and somehow expected my mother and occasionally us kids to know where he might have left it.  He was also somewhat at sea when it came to tools and fixing things.  As a result, we had a garage door that did not function properly, and if you wanted it to stay open, you had to prop up the lift mechanism with a block of wood or other handy object.  One fair spring day, my father needed to prop the garage door, and couldn’t find anything handy, so he used his wallet.  Lawns were mowed, children were pried out from in front of Saturday cartoons and delegated various weed wacking and stick removal duties, lunch came and went, the weather stayed fine, the garage door stayed open.  The wallet of course, went missing, and despite 5 or 6 people’s best efforts, could not be found.  After a few days (this was in the late 70′s or early 80′s, a gentler time) Dad gave up and canceled his cards and replaced his driver’s license and bought himself a new wallet.  Months later, perhaps even as late as the next fall, the weather started to turn nasty, and Dad decided he should shut the garage door to keep the wind from blowing leaves and such into the garage.  Voila, the wallet was found!

So here I am in middle age, and I too have days where I can barely remember my name, much less where I last left the car keys.  I don’t have children, so I will have to leave it to my nieces and nephew or perhaps if I am lucky my step grandchildren to tell amusing anecdotes about me someday.  And I raise a glass of good bourbon whiskey with a splash of branch water (a concoction with a long history of generating many a fine anecdote), to my parents:  to my father back in Kentucky, and to my mother who is now gone but whose spirit I am sure lingers about the sand bars and beaches of New England.  I love you.