OK, Here is my take on GMOs, so I'm getting into the opinion side of things, as opposed to farm updates. (The blog name "Virid views" can be taken two ways. It is both things I see along the journey, as well as my views on what I see.)
I oppose the use of genetically engineered organisms.
Before I list my concerns, this is where I am coming from. My opinion is partly science based, and partly value based. Regarding the science, I will give researchers the benefit of the doubt as I would with any other area of public concern, that they are conducting the best science they can, and that their initial assessments are the best information we have to go on.
That said, I do have a concern with the science. While they have not found any health risks to date, it seems like everyone thinks that if it doesn't cause cancer or obvious first order observable effects, it is ok. This in spite of the fact that many other technologies and medical "advances" have ended up causing problems we were not able to anticipate or observe initially. Human hubris seems to be hard wired into the race, not to speak of the powerful drive for profits.
Ok, my concerns:
1. The science on GMOs is preponderately about human health, but not nearly enough about introduction of unique organisms into the biosphere that have not been the result of millions of years of interactive evolution with the rest of the biome. Hubris once again, but in this case, making the assumption that we understand enough about how the ecosystem works that we are comfortable tweaking a variable that could never have happened through normal evolutionary pressure. When we consider the two relatively new areas of research such as epigenetics and the human gut biome, we need to realize that there is a LOT we still don't know when considering the impact of new biotechnology.
2. Industrial agriculture is also centrally controlled agriculture. At one time, a small holding farmer was the epitome of autonomy and self reliance, but ask today's large commodity farmer about their livelihood, and many will say that they feel trapped and don't like how things are trending, but see no way out. They work their butts off like any permaculturist or organic farmer, but in many seasons are just a step ahead of the bank in paying off yearly production loans. Seed saving is becoming illegal, options for seed become less every year, and profit making is a central motive for much of agriculture research. This is one more area of the economy that has been allowed to become an oligopoly.
https://msu.edu/~howardp/seedindustry.html
The endless treadmill- We already see reports of herbicide resistant weeds, pesticide resistant bugs, and ag tech companies coming up with "stacked" genes, enabling them to kill weeds by drenching them with TWO herbicides that the food crop has been modified to resist. Where does this end?
4. Competition through collaboration- Long term agriculture practice, to be truly sustainable, needs to work with nature, rather than against it. That does not mean that we return to hunter gatherers, or use no technology, but rather be smart about choosing methods, and have a bias towards initially observing rather than dominating. GMOs are an attempt to dominate and create monocultures suitable only for mans needs, not the overall ecosystem health. If nothing else, enlightened self interest would have us collaborate with, and share a bit bit more with our fellow organisms, rather than risk some tipping point we aren't yet aware of. It's time to move from r- selected behavior to K- selected behavior, and become the keystone species we were meant to be.
5. No turning back, or invoking the precautionary principle- GMOs are a unique technology in that once released in to the world, we can't stuff it back in Pandora's box. Natural powers of replication will take over, and a new stable state of the ecosystem might not be one we like. Just look at the disasters we have already caused by transporting organisms all over the globe (intentionally and unintentionally) into new biomes they were not a part of, and wreaking havoc. GE organisms would potentially result in even worse unbalancing events.
6. Resilience and brittle technology- The more we depend on fewer and fewer food crop genetics, the more at risk we are for a black swan event or single point failure that we have no back up plan for. There is a reason that nature expresses such a wild abundance of genetic variation- IT WORKS. It has stood the test of time, and overall biome health results because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. GMOs help make the food foundations of our society more narrow and unstable.
Some personal history- I was raised on a farm. Back in 1970, Southern Corn leaf blight decimated the U.S. corn crop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_corn_leaf_blight#Importance
We had our losses, but not as bad as some. What had happened, was a natural genetic variation that eliminated expensive hand detasseling seed corn fields had been incorporated into nearly all seed corn in the U.S. It turned out that this variation was also especially susceptible to the blight. One dampish year, and disaster struck. By my sophomore year in high school, us rural kids all had summer jobs detasseling again. Seed companies all doing the same thing to save money was brittle or "unresilient" technology in action.
Unfortunately, we have already opened the pandora's box, and we are unlikely to turn back, and in some cases, where GE organisms have already "escaped" or cross bred, we can't turn back.
In the mean time, some of us plant many varieties of heirloom veggies, slowly figure out how to get a good crop without chemicals, and try to regain resilience.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
sunroom seed starting or why we bought this house
I mentioned in my 2016 garden update post that the sunroom seed starting last year didn't go that well, and I plan to change things a bit to improve that. Here is the sunroom I am using to start our garden seeds. Photo taken the other day on a sunny, late winter day, as sun angle is starting to increase.
As you can see, I didn't tidy up for the photo, lots of things to notice. Firewood stacks, potting soil bags, self watering containers with herbs that stay green all winter, the big windows that admit sun into the living room, and even a treadmill so my wife can get the blood moving in the dead of winter. We have a big sliding door in to the room, and on sunny winter days, we have even left the door open to let warmer air in to the house.
A bit of history on the sun room. When we started looking for a small farm in this area, we soon found that real estate websites were a good way to get a feel for price ranges and features we might be able to afford (without spending hours traveling).
Originally, I had wanted to just buy open land, and build a house and everything else from scratch. Arranging everything on permaculture principles and our own ideas sounded great. The farm we saw on the internet and ended up buying had a house, but the house had enough positive feature that I gave up on my dream of building my own house. Looking back, it was a very lucky turn of events, as house building while still working a full time job would have been a nightmare.
The sunroom was one of the features that sold us on the house ( I have already talked about the attached root cellar). The sunroom runs the full length of the south face of the house, and captures solar heat quite well. Large windows between the sunroom and the living space also admit lots of light during the winter. I might go in to more detail later on how and why I ended up rebuilding it, but that's another story.
Starting seeds in here- Because of how I designed the roof overhang, the room actually gets the least direct sunlight during summer, when you don't need it, and gets lots of light during winter and the "shoulder months". The problem is that during nights, temperatures can still get too cold for seedlings to germinate or thrive, so I have used heat mats in the past, but not enough. I will use them even more this time. They are powered through a thermostat, so only come on at night when needed.
Like this one:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7626-hydrofarm-seedling-heat-mat-20-x-48.aspx
A future project is to possibly install thermal blinds on the
large outer windows to close at night, and fill some barrels with water to soak up heat during the day and release it during the night. Till then, I will unfortunately be using a lot of watts.
As I finally post this, the onion seeds have all germinated, and are looking good. Brassicas will be next to start in about two weeks.
Our first planting in the soil will be peas and potatoes, but the soil isn't quite ready for them yet. Can't wait!
As you can see, I didn't tidy up for the photo, lots of things to notice. Firewood stacks, potting soil bags, self watering containers with herbs that stay green all winter, the big windows that admit sun into the living room, and even a treadmill so my wife can get the blood moving in the dead of winter. We have a big sliding door in to the room, and on sunny winter days, we have even left the door open to let warmer air in to the house.
A bit of history on the sun room. When we started looking for a small farm in this area, we soon found that real estate websites were a good way to get a feel for price ranges and features we might be able to afford (without spending hours traveling).
Originally, I had wanted to just buy open land, and build a house and everything else from scratch. Arranging everything on permaculture principles and our own ideas sounded great. The farm we saw on the internet and ended up buying had a house, but the house had enough positive feature that I gave up on my dream of building my own house. Looking back, it was a very lucky turn of events, as house building while still working a full time job would have been a nightmare.
The sunroom was one of the features that sold us on the house ( I have already talked about the attached root cellar). The sunroom runs the full length of the south face of the house, and captures solar heat quite well. Large windows between the sunroom and the living space also admit lots of light during the winter. I might go in to more detail later on how and why I ended up rebuilding it, but that's another story.
Starting seeds in here- Because of how I designed the roof overhang, the room actually gets the least direct sunlight during summer, when you don't need it, and gets lots of light during winter and the "shoulder months". The problem is that during nights, temperatures can still get too cold for seedlings to germinate or thrive, so I have used heat mats in the past, but not enough. I will use them even more this time. They are powered through a thermostat, so only come on at night when needed.
Like this one:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7626-hydrofarm-seedling-heat-mat-20-x-48.aspx
A future project is to possibly install thermal blinds on the
large outer windows to close at night, and fill some barrels with water to soak up heat during the day and release it during the night. Till then, I will unfortunately be using a lot of watts.
As I finally post this, the onion seeds have all germinated, and are looking good. Brassicas will be next to start in about two weeks.
Our first planting in the soil will be peas and potatoes, but the soil isn't quite ready for them yet. Can't wait!
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
foraging black walnuts
I just started cracking the black walnuts I gathered this fall. I could have probably started well over a month ago, but just now got around to it. Black Walnuts ( Juglans nigra) are a common tree in the midwest, especially further south. In fact, Here in Wisconsin, we are about at their northernmost extent. What is pretty common across their range is that they aren't that widely grown in nut plantations, but rather are a part of the natural forest makeup or have been planted individually or in timber farms for their prized wood.
One company, Hammons, has ended up with a near monopoly on processing and marketing wild black walnuts by paying foragers to gather and sell at their hulling stations, set up around the midwest. Turns out there are a lot of people looking for a little extra cash, so they hand harvest around 20 million pound ( 9 million kg ) each year. This is a unique business model for the United States, where nearly everything we eat is a product of the monocultured industrial food system. If you are eating black walnuts, you are eating wild food.
But the foragers can't get to all the trees, and many trees aren't near a hulling station, so scads of trees are left for someone to harvest. There are also many towns and suburbs where large old walnut trees are producing nice crops each year, but few seem to utilize this free food.
Two reasons- first, they are one tough nut to crack. They are much harder to crack than the English, or Persian walnut most people are familiar with and buy at the grocery store. The husks are a bit messy to deal with also.
Here is the cracker I started using after I realized that a hammer was slow, wasteful and stupid. It works ok, but the larger nuts are right on the edge of what it can handle. I'll be looking for a stronger one.
Second- they have a stronger flavor ( some might say better) compared to the English nut, so some are put off at first, and never give them a chance. They are used commercially in confections, baking, and even ice cream, but not nearly to the extent of English walnuts. I personally think they pair very well with chocolate, so when I make brownies or chocolate chip cookies, they are my first choice. I also use them in the granola I make.
And, I suppose, many just don't want to go to the effort at all, since you can buy nice bagged, shelled nuts at the store! End result is there are a lot of walnut trees producing nuts every year that are unharvested or unwanted. I've actually seen Facebook posts where requests are made for anyone to come gather the nuts so the homeowner won't have to.
After I first realized and started watching for unwanted walnuts, I started seeing them all over. And when we moved here in 2014, I had to start scoping out the area for more trees, and soon found that there are some experienced foragers in the area, with their prized trees they have "claimed". There are still enough unspoken for, so I was able to find a good number this fall, but hope to scout out and gather even more next year.
One company, Hammons, has ended up with a near monopoly on processing and marketing wild black walnuts by paying foragers to gather and sell at their hulling stations, set up around the midwest. Turns out there are a lot of people looking for a little extra cash, so they hand harvest around 20 million pound ( 9 million kg ) each year. This is a unique business model for the United States, where nearly everything we eat is a product of the monocultured industrial food system. If you are eating black walnuts, you are eating wild food.
But the foragers can't get to all the trees, and many trees aren't near a hulling station, so scads of trees are left for someone to harvest. There are also many towns and suburbs where large old walnut trees are producing nice crops each year, but few seem to utilize this free food.
Two reasons- first, they are one tough nut to crack. They are much harder to crack than the English, or Persian walnut most people are familiar with and buy at the grocery store. The husks are a bit messy to deal with also.
Here is the cracker I started using after I realized that a hammer was slow, wasteful and stupid. It works ok, but the larger nuts are right on the edge of what it can handle. I'll be looking for a stronger one.
Second- they have a stronger flavor ( some might say better) compared to the English nut, so some are put off at first, and never give them a chance. They are used commercially in confections, baking, and even ice cream, but not nearly to the extent of English walnuts. I personally think they pair very well with chocolate, so when I make brownies or chocolate chip cookies, they are my first choice. I also use them in the granola I make.
And, I suppose, many just don't want to go to the effort at all, since you can buy nice bagged, shelled nuts at the store! End result is there are a lot of walnut trees producing nuts every year that are unharvested or unwanted. I've actually seen Facebook posts where requests are made for anyone to come gather the nuts so the homeowner won't have to.
My haul from the trees I was able to locate nearby this past fall. That is a lot of hand cracking to do sitting there.
After I first realized and started watching for unwanted walnuts, I started seeing them all over. And when we moved here in 2014, I had to start scoping out the area for more trees, and soon found that there are some experienced foragers in the area, with their prized trees they have "claimed". There are still enough unspoken for, so I was able to find a good number this fall, but hope to scout out and gather even more next year.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Garden plans for 2016
Got all our garden seeds ordered, and have received nearly all of them now. All told, we will be planting 25 different veggies. While we are not expanding our garden (much) we are trying a few new things each year, and here are the 2016 additions.
"potato" or multiplying onions- These onions are supposed to have multiple bulbs, and if subdivided at harvest, can provide both onions to eat and seed bulbs for the next planting. Never have to by onion seeds or sets again! Kind of like perennial onions. That's the claim anyway. We've tried both sets and seeds, with fair results, but onions from seed take forever. It's actually getting close to time to start onion seeds. They are best planted in the fall, which we did. We'll see what comes up this spring.We will still be starting onions from seed as well.
Flint corn- Corn takes up a lot of room, and is a heavy feeder, but we are trying various corn types because sweet corn is a traditional summer food here in the midwest, and can be canned or frozen and preserved. But flint corn is the best for making your own corn meal, so we are trying the Floriani red variety, as I read a good review in Mother Earth News.
Beets- Can't believe we hadn't got beets in the system till now. Finally going to plant them. We chose Red Ace variety, but just picked it more or less at random out of the Johnny's catalogue, and don't know how well it will do here.
Hot peppers- We've done cayenne, jalapeño, and regular sweet peppers, but thought I would try poblanos to make our own chile rellenos, maybe make some ancho powder. The Tiburon variety is supposed to be medium hot.
Tomatoes- We'll try Mortgage Lifters this year. This is a classic, and we enjoyed the big slicers ( don't know the variety, we bought transplants from an Amish vendor) we had last year, so we'll do some again. Most of our tomatoes will be Roma tomatoes again, for canning sauce.
Seed starting in the sunroom- we did not do a good job of setting up the trays for warm loving plants last year, will do more to protect them on cool spring nights when the sunroom cools off. Our tomatoes from seed did terrible, that's why we bought additional plants from a local farmer.
The brassicas and other cooler weather plants did fine, but we'll use heat mats for the tomatoes and peppers more than we did last year. It was also a dilemma whether to move them back under lights for those long cloudy stretches. I think we'll just have to be more attentive and move them as needed more this time. A future project might be to install insulated blinds on the sunroom windows to close at night, but that will be a big project, and need to study the cost/benefit more before committing to.
Other new stuff for 2016-
We are ordering some Korean pines to plant in strategic places. Korean pines are supposed to handle the cold here, and have large pine nuts, suitable for eating. I also want to beef up the windbreak west of the house, to help reduce winter winds.
Double dug spading for the potatoes and other root crops- I've heard about this John Jeavons promoted technique, but it's a lot of work. Will try to use the broad fork more as well, as most of our garden has fairly heavy soil.
Bees- More on this later, but I'd love to reduce sugar purchasing, and use our own sweetener as much as possible. The box elder syrup worked fine last spring, so we'll do that again, but honey would have the bonus of boosting the pollinator population here. Just ordered the queens, and will be going with two top bar hives this spring.
Meat chickens- yes, we are going to try some Cornish Cross. Our first chickens, Black Australorps and New Hampshire Reds, did ok, but took forever to get to weight, and so the roosters were a bit chewy. The hens we kept are doing great as egg layers this winter, with production only dropping off a little bit. For the meat birds this spring, we'll plan to be careful with feed rationing and get them out on pasture as soon as possible to minimize the problems with Cornish Cross.
Rain water- will be collecting rain water off the pole barn roof, and gravity feeding to the garden to reduce well water usage. The north roof is already plumbed up and will water fruit trees, but the south roof will be for garden use. I have the storage tanks, but will wait till spring to install the piping from the gutter to the tanks.
Days are getting noticeably longer now! Can't wait to get those first trays filled with potting soil.
"potato" or multiplying onions- These onions are supposed to have multiple bulbs, and if subdivided at harvest, can provide both onions to eat and seed bulbs for the next planting. Never have to by onion seeds or sets again! Kind of like perennial onions. That's the claim anyway. We've tried both sets and seeds, with fair results, but onions from seed take forever. It's actually getting close to time to start onion seeds. They are best planted in the fall, which we did. We'll see what comes up this spring.We will still be starting onions from seed as well.
Flint corn- Corn takes up a lot of room, and is a heavy feeder, but we are trying various corn types because sweet corn is a traditional summer food here in the midwest, and can be canned or frozen and preserved. But flint corn is the best for making your own corn meal, so we are trying the Floriani red variety, as I read a good review in Mother Earth News.
Beets- Can't believe we hadn't got beets in the system till now. Finally going to plant them. We chose Red Ace variety, but just picked it more or less at random out of the Johnny's catalogue, and don't know how well it will do here.
Hot peppers- We've done cayenne, jalapeño, and regular sweet peppers, but thought I would try poblanos to make our own chile rellenos, maybe make some ancho powder. The Tiburon variety is supposed to be medium hot.
Tomatoes- We'll try Mortgage Lifters this year. This is a classic, and we enjoyed the big slicers ( don't know the variety, we bought transplants from an Amish vendor) we had last year, so we'll do some again. Most of our tomatoes will be Roma tomatoes again, for canning sauce.
Seed starting in the sunroom- we did not do a good job of setting up the trays for warm loving plants last year, will do more to protect them on cool spring nights when the sunroom cools off. Our tomatoes from seed did terrible, that's why we bought additional plants from a local farmer.
The brassicas and other cooler weather plants did fine, but we'll use heat mats for the tomatoes and peppers more than we did last year. It was also a dilemma whether to move them back under lights for those long cloudy stretches. I think we'll just have to be more attentive and move them as needed more this time. A future project might be to install insulated blinds on the sunroom windows to close at night, but that will be a big project, and need to study the cost/benefit more before committing to.
Other new stuff for 2016-
We are ordering some Korean pines to plant in strategic places. Korean pines are supposed to handle the cold here, and have large pine nuts, suitable for eating. I also want to beef up the windbreak west of the house, to help reduce winter winds.
Double dug spading for the potatoes and other root crops- I've heard about this John Jeavons promoted technique, but it's a lot of work. Will try to use the broad fork more as well, as most of our garden has fairly heavy soil.
Bees- More on this later, but I'd love to reduce sugar purchasing, and use our own sweetener as much as possible. The box elder syrup worked fine last spring, so we'll do that again, but honey would have the bonus of boosting the pollinator population here. Just ordered the queens, and will be going with two top bar hives this spring.
Meat chickens- yes, we are going to try some Cornish Cross. Our first chickens, Black Australorps and New Hampshire Reds, did ok, but took forever to get to weight, and so the roosters were a bit chewy. The hens we kept are doing great as egg layers this winter, with production only dropping off a little bit. For the meat birds this spring, we'll plan to be careful with feed rationing and get them out on pasture as soon as possible to minimize the problems with Cornish Cross.
Rain water- will be collecting rain water off the pole barn roof, and gravity feeding to the garden to reduce well water usage. The north roof is already plumbed up and will water fruit trees, but the south roof will be for garden use. I have the storage tanks, but will wait till spring to install the piping from the gutter to the tanks.
As usual, I don't have much in the way of photos, but thought this might be fun to show. Off topic, but the pheasants around here are
the goofiest. I'm not sure if local hunters periodically stock the area, or what, but they are almost tame acting, and wander around seemingly aimlessly, making me wonder how they survive. They are happy to forage below our bird feeders right outside the window.
Days are getting noticeably longer now! Can't wait to get those first trays filled with potting soil.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
making hard cider
While it's known in other parts of the world as simply cider, here in the U.S. it's called hard cider, to designate that it has alcohol in it. For a few years now, has been making a comeback. Domestic production has risen 264% from 2005 to 2012. Cider was the drink of choice at one time, but the weird experiment in government overreach that was Prohibition ( 1920-1933) killed the cider industry.
Good cider apples are different than your typical eating apple, so orchards switched to eating apples during prohibition. When Prohibition was over, grain based alcoholic beverages could ramp up a lot quicker than orchards, as trees take years to reach production. The profitability of eating apples is also hard to overcome.
Any way, cider seems like a very good option for permaculture, as it preserves the crop and the trees do not need annual tilling, planting, herbicides, etc... Currently, some mavericks are planting cider apple trees, but the demand is outstripping supply. Our farm has a few eating apple trees, and several large old "wild" apple trees that we need to clear around, prune, and see what they might be able to provide.
This fall, a nearby neighbor with an apple grinder and cider press invited all to bring their apples and make cider. We saved up several buckets of our apples and added to the mix. The resulting cider was a blend of whatever people brought, with most having no idea what variety they were bringing. We ended up with eight gallons ( 30 liters) of fresh squeezed cider, and needed a plan for what to do with it.
Coincidentally, the prior week we had finally bought home brewing supplies, and were getting ready to make our first batch of beer. So instead of beer, we put five gallons ( 19 liters) in the carboy, slapped on the air lock, and sat it in a back room. ( The rest was drank fresh or frozen for later drinking)
For anyone in South or Central Wisconsin, these folks were helpful and have a very well stocked store for home brewers:
http://wineandhop.com
The cider started working, but was very slow. As best I could tell from the hydrometer, we could theoretically end up with 5% or 6% alcohol. These were wild yeast, and you get the luck of the draw in how good they would be at converting the sugar.
And even more coincidentally, a couple days later I was talking to another neighbor who had recently built a small ( micro?) cydery, and had been making cider for actual sale. He gave me some yeast nutrient, and said it would perk things up. It did. The yeast got to work and did bubble more quickly. After a couple weeks, things slowed down, and we got ready to bottle.
I'd read about the process, but reading and doing are two different things. I don't even remember all the terminology unique to home brewing. You rack bottles with a cane, as an example. When I do start cooking malt for beer, there will be even more terms to forget.
It took us a while to get the tubing to flow down to the bottles, and get a good routine down for filling and capping, but overall, it went rather well. We decided to experiment and put 1/4 teaspoon of sugar ( 1.25 grams) in each of two dozen of the bottles to get a little carbonation. All the others would be still cider, as the yeast had eaten up all the sugar, and would be generating no more carbon dioxide.
At Christmas, we tried the carbonated bottles, and they did have some carbonation, and were drinkable. The cider we made was dry, tart, and not too bad, but the flavor profile was kind of plain. The still cider tastes the same, just no fizz. I am getting used to it. Overall, a successful experiment, and now we have to empty the bottles so we can make beer.
Always things to be done around here!
No photos of the process this post, I need to get better at capturing our escapades as they occur. For why it's worth, here is one of our better apple trees, in mid summer, with lots of apples ripening.
Good cider apples are different than your typical eating apple, so orchards switched to eating apples during prohibition. When Prohibition was over, grain based alcoholic beverages could ramp up a lot quicker than orchards, as trees take years to reach production. The profitability of eating apples is also hard to overcome.
Any way, cider seems like a very good option for permaculture, as it preserves the crop and the trees do not need annual tilling, planting, herbicides, etc... Currently, some mavericks are planting cider apple trees, but the demand is outstripping supply. Our farm has a few eating apple trees, and several large old "wild" apple trees that we need to clear around, prune, and see what they might be able to provide.
This fall, a nearby neighbor with an apple grinder and cider press invited all to bring their apples and make cider. We saved up several buckets of our apples and added to the mix. The resulting cider was a blend of whatever people brought, with most having no idea what variety they were bringing. We ended up with eight gallons ( 30 liters) of fresh squeezed cider, and needed a plan for what to do with it.
Coincidentally, the prior week we had finally bought home brewing supplies, and were getting ready to make our first batch of beer. So instead of beer, we put five gallons ( 19 liters) in the carboy, slapped on the air lock, and sat it in a back room. ( The rest was drank fresh or frozen for later drinking)
For anyone in South or Central Wisconsin, these folks were helpful and have a very well stocked store for home brewers:
http://wineandhop.com
The cider started working, but was very slow. As best I could tell from the hydrometer, we could theoretically end up with 5% or 6% alcohol. These were wild yeast, and you get the luck of the draw in how good they would be at converting the sugar.
And even more coincidentally, a couple days later I was talking to another neighbor who had recently built a small ( micro?) cydery, and had been making cider for actual sale. He gave me some yeast nutrient, and said it would perk things up. It did. The yeast got to work and did bubble more quickly. After a couple weeks, things slowed down, and we got ready to bottle.
I'd read about the process, but reading and doing are two different things. I don't even remember all the terminology unique to home brewing. You rack bottles with a cane, as an example. When I do start cooking malt for beer, there will be even more terms to forget.
It took us a while to get the tubing to flow down to the bottles, and get a good routine down for filling and capping, but overall, it went rather well. We decided to experiment and put 1/4 teaspoon of sugar ( 1.25 grams) in each of two dozen of the bottles to get a little carbonation. All the others would be still cider, as the yeast had eaten up all the sugar, and would be generating no more carbon dioxide.
At Christmas, we tried the carbonated bottles, and they did have some carbonation, and were drinkable. The cider we made was dry, tart, and not too bad, but the flavor profile was kind of plain. The still cider tastes the same, just no fizz. I am getting used to it. Overall, a successful experiment, and now we have to empty the bottles so we can make beer.
Always things to be done around here!
No photos of the process this post, I need to get better at capturing our escapades as they occur. For why it's worth, here is one of our better apple trees, in mid summer, with lots of apples ripening.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
handling firewood
Firewood will not be able to heat us all after the fossil fuels are gone, but with careful stewardship and fewer homes, it will be a way for many of us to keep warm in those places that get cold in the winter and have enough rainfall to grow trees.
For now though, I am lucky enough to be in a place where wood heat is feasible and sustainable for the local population density. The climate and terrain in Southwest Wisconsin are conducive to sustainable wood harvesting.
I have projects in mind for improving the efficiency of our house, but in the mean time, we are burning around three cords of wood a winter.
While splitting wood by hand, I often just kind of go blank, or "get in the zone", but the mind sometimes wanders. Can't tell you how many times I silently repeated that old saying "chopping your own wood warms you twice- once when chopping it, and once when burning it". Attribution is to many, but it's a pretty obvious conclusion to anyone who splits wood by hand.
But then I thought about how many times I touch the wood with my hand, ( and wearing out gloves) and began counting. After I drop a dead elm with my chainsaw ( not ready to use my crosscut on felling just yet, maybe next year) here are the steps to get in to the Russian furnace.
1. From the ground in to my truck
2. From truck to a pile next to the splitting station
3. From the ground on to the top of a big old oak round
4. (smaller and more pieces now)From the ground to my wood shed
5. From my wood shed into a wheelbarrow
6. From the wheelbarrow in to a bin in our sunroom
7. From the bin in to the house and into the woodbox
8. From the woodbox in to the Russian furnace
and I guess we won't count the steps the ashes go through before they become soap or soil amendment.While the various handling steps don't wear you out like the actual splitting, they do make one appreciate how much time and labor we replace with fossil fuels these days.
I was talking about firewood with a neighbor, and mentioned that I preferred not to use box elder because of the low but content, and he stated that density and btu content are directly correlated, to which my immediate reaction was, gosh, that makes sense, but is it true? So I went looking for info to see for myself. Could find nothing on the internet that charted the correlation, so I found sources for various densities, and other sources for btu content, and graphed the two.
The chart below has density is in pounds (LBS) per cubic foot (FT3) and the heat content is in MBTU/cord. A cord of wood is a volume 4 feet by four feet by eight feet. Quite the mish mash of old units, but this doesn't really matter when looking for a correlation.
In general, it is a pretty good linear relationship. Red cedar, apple, and shagbark hickory are the three that are a bit above the line, meaning that they have less btu content than one would extrapolate from their density. Shagbark hickory had the highest density, and also a very good btu content. Ironwood had the best btu content per unit volume, so it would be the best firewood to use, except it is less common, and does not grow to a large size. In my general area, oak is by far the most common wood for heating, as it has a good heat content, and is a common tree here. There are a few firewood or common trees for our area that I did not find numbers for, so this chart is of course not definitive, and I also can't vouch for the sources I used, but in general I think I've confirmed the common sense notion that the density and heat content should have a linear relationship. Here is the data in tabular form. These are trees for the U.S., but I would imagine the relationship holds for other species.
For now though, I am lucky enough to be in a place where wood heat is feasible and sustainable for the local population density. The climate and terrain in Southwest Wisconsin are conducive to sustainable wood harvesting.
I have projects in mind for improving the efficiency of our house, but in the mean time, we are burning around three cords of wood a winter.
While splitting wood by hand, I often just kind of go blank, or "get in the zone", but the mind sometimes wanders. Can't tell you how many times I silently repeated that old saying "chopping your own wood warms you twice- once when chopping it, and once when burning it". Attribution is to many, but it's a pretty obvious conclusion to anyone who splits wood by hand.
But then I thought about how many times I touch the wood with my hand, ( and wearing out gloves) and began counting. After I drop a dead elm with my chainsaw ( not ready to use my crosscut on felling just yet, maybe next year) here are the steps to get in to the Russian furnace.
1. From the ground in to my truck
2. From truck to a pile next to the splitting station
3. From the ground on to the top of a big old oak round
4. (smaller and more pieces now)From the ground to my wood shed
5. From my wood shed into a wheelbarrow
6. From the wheelbarrow in to a bin in our sunroom
7. From the bin in to the house and into the woodbox
8. From the woodbox in to the Russian furnace
and I guess we won't count the steps the ashes go through before they become soap or soil amendment.While the various handling steps don't wear you out like the actual splitting, they do make one appreciate how much time and labor we replace with fossil fuels these days.
I was talking about firewood with a neighbor, and mentioned that I preferred not to use box elder because of the low but content, and he stated that density and btu content are directly correlated, to which my immediate reaction was, gosh, that makes sense, but is it true? So I went looking for info to see for myself. Could find nothing on the internet that charted the correlation, so I found sources for various densities, and other sources for btu content, and graphed the two.
The chart below has density is in pounds (LBS) per cubic foot (FT3) and the heat content is in MBTU/cord. A cord of wood is a volume 4 feet by four feet by eight feet. Quite the mish mash of old units, but this doesn't really matter when looking for a correlation.
In general, it is a pretty good linear relationship. Red cedar, apple, and shagbark hickory are the three that are a bit above the line, meaning that they have less btu content than one would extrapolate from their density. Shagbark hickory had the highest density, and also a very good btu content. Ironwood had the best btu content per unit volume, so it would be the best firewood to use, except it is less common, and does not grow to a large size. In my general area, oak is by far the most common wood for heating, as it has a good heat content, and is a common tree here. There are a few firewood or common trees for our area that I did not find numbers for, so this chart is of course not definitive, and I also can't vouch for the sources I used, but in general I think I've confirmed the common sense notion that the density and heat content should have a linear relationship. Here is the data in tabular form. These are trees for the U.S., but I would imagine the relationship holds for other species.
| alder |
14.8
|
23.7
|
| apple |
21.6
|
46.5
|
| black ash |
17.9
|
32.8
|
| green ash |
21.1
|
38
|
| white ash |
21.6
|
39.8
|
| aspen |
13.7
|
25
|
| basswood |
13.7
|
24.8
|
| american beech |
22.7
|
40.8
|
| blue beech |
23.7
|
44.7
|
| grey birch |
19.5
|
34.4
|
| yellow birch |
22.1
|
41.7
|
| white birch |
20
|
37.4
|
| butternut |
13.2
|
25.2
|
| redcedar |
12.1
|
30.7
|
| white cedar |
11.6
|
19.6
|
| black cherry |
19.5
|
33.3
|
| american elm |
18.4
|
34.5
|
| balsam fir |
13.2
|
25.8
|
| shagbark hickory |
25.3
|
50.53
|
| ironwood |
26.4
|
47.5
|
| black locust |
23.2
|
44.2
|
| honey locust |
23.7
|
41.5
|
| black maple |
21.1
|
38.7
|
| red maple |
20
|
34
|
| sugar maple |
23.2
|
42.2
|
| bur oak |
22.7
|
41.8
|
| red oak |
22.1
|
41
|
| white oak |
24.7
|
44.3
|
| jack pine |
14.8
|
28.7
|
| red pine |
17.9
|
31.6
|
| white pine |
13.2
|
23.2
|
A final word for anyone heating, or contemplating heating with firewood- KEEP IT DRY! My pet peeve is heating with unseasoned or wet firewood. So much energy is wasted turning water to steam that it is a criminal waste, one might as well chuck half the wood you've worked so hard on into the nearest ravine. I see it all the time though, especially those who have the wood boilers.
I might rant on that another time, but for now, KEEP IT DRY!
Sunday, October 25, 2015
A tour of the root cellar
When we started looking for a farm property six years ago, I had been inclined to find open land with no buildings, so I could build a very energy efficient and probably earth sheltered house, as well as lay out the overall infrastructure with permaculture principles in mind.
But the house and property we ended up buying had enough cool features that I let go of that idea. (Good thing too, as I now think the project might have been quite the strain, as we were both still working and not living close enough to make very quick progress)
One of those features was an attached root cellar. Since the house is hillside and partially earth sheltered, the root cellar is accessed from inside the house, on the upslope side.
While the root cellar does have a couple design flaws, it is quite serviceable, and since it adjoins the laundry/utility room, it is very handy. Who wants to go out in the snow, clear snow from the door, and chip some ice before getting a jar of canned tomatoes in February?
Here is a quick tour of our stores this fall.
We have a set of bins, a wooden shelf set, and two sets of plastic shelves. With the humidity and dark, the wood needs to be rot resistant. I used cedar leftovers, and some black locust leftovers.
The bottom half of the bins has butternut squash, potatoes, and acorn squash. Apples were here earlier, till we made the cider. These all store well, and the potatoes were from our own seed potatoes saved in the root cellar from last season. Down and to the left you can see the hard cider we bottled a couple weeks ago.
Top half of this bin tower has onions, more acorn squash, and on top are seeds in glass jars.
This shelf set has dry beans, spinach noodles, dried apple slices, apple butter, apple pie filling, apple sauce, spiced apple rings ( we had a good apple year) dried potato slices, and some peach pie filling.We found making noodles is a good way to put up extra spinach, and it works well with basil also.
These shelves have pickles, green beans, dehydrated kale, and some beverages.
The wooden shelves have pickles, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, green beans, chicken broth, and some odds and ends. You can also see our garlic. We did not have a great garlic year, but have already planted next years garlic, so what's left is all for eating. It should last till late winter, but won't get us to next summer.
But the house and property we ended up buying had enough cool features that I let go of that idea. (Good thing too, as I now think the project might have been quite the strain, as we were both still working and not living close enough to make very quick progress)
One of those features was an attached root cellar. Since the house is hillside and partially earth sheltered, the root cellar is accessed from inside the house, on the upslope side.
While the root cellar does have a couple design flaws, it is quite serviceable, and since it adjoins the laundry/utility room, it is very handy. Who wants to go out in the snow, clear snow from the door, and chip some ice before getting a jar of canned tomatoes in February?
Here is a quick tour of our stores this fall.
We have a set of bins, a wooden shelf set, and two sets of plastic shelves. With the humidity and dark, the wood needs to be rot resistant. I used cedar leftovers, and some black locust leftovers.
The bottom half of the bins has butternut squash, potatoes, and acorn squash. Apples were here earlier, till we made the cider. These all store well, and the potatoes were from our own seed potatoes saved in the root cellar from last season. Down and to the left you can see the hard cider we bottled a couple weeks ago.
Top half of this bin tower has onions, more acorn squash, and on top are seeds in glass jars.
This shelf set has dry beans, spinach noodles, dried apple slices, apple butter, apple pie filling, apple sauce, spiced apple rings ( we had a good apple year) dried potato slices, and some peach pie filling.We found making noodles is a good way to put up extra spinach, and it works well with basil also.
A lot of this does not really need to be in a root cellar, but it would not fit in the pantry or kitchen storage, so this makes a fine place till we need more true root cellar storage for more root crops or fruits. We haven't harvested the parsnips yet, but the carrots were a bust this year, and hope to get better results and store some in here next year.
A lot of our veggie storage is in our chest freezer, but over time we hope to can or dehydrate as much as we can to reduce dependence on the freezer. We try new dehydrating or canning experiments each year, some work, and some don't.
Most of this is from our own trees and garden, but not all of it. The peaches, acorn squash, and beverages are purchased. We increase our dry bean plantings each year, and have enough for year round eating now, but most of those are stored in the pantry.
Two things I hope to modify on the root cellar are a better air vent setup, and a bit more dirt on the roof. These will both get it colder, and keep it colder longer in to summer.
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