What’s in the ground:

I worried that my last installment did you all a disservice by cutting out this section to make space for the greenhouse story. My tip was going to be about cover crop and that you all should sow it on sections of your garden that are now bare (especially where tomatoes were planted since they feed so heavily on nitrogen and cover crop usually builds up nitrogen). I was worried because I would have sworn that we would have had our first frost by now in Philly, but other than a few close calls, a wacky snow storm, and these last two weeks of 70 F weather, I’d say that you can probably get away with throwing a little cover crop down if you haven’t already. Although the days are shorter and it’s getting colder, I bet you could still get a seed to germinate of clover, maybe even rye. Just water it well.

As I’ve said before, I’m making 2012 the year of flowers. So this past weekend I planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, plus some strawberries. I may have reached a new level of garden geek, but I cannot wait to see that first candy striped tulip to bloom next april. Last season was such a good one for Tulips. I hope this summer repeats (at least for the tulips and not the weird stuff the weather did to other crops).

What’s going on in the homestead:

I wanted to start this installment with a funny homestead story. Our bike shed is right near our chicken coop, so it’s not unusual for Elissa and I to remember to gather the eggs when we’re either going out or coming home. This particular day we had just road in from Center City and Elissa remembered to reach in and grab the eggs. Lucky for us we’ve been keeping the chickens well fed, with a lot of sun exposure, so they’ve basically been laying once a day. Elissa packed her pockets with eggs and we walked into the house. We hung our jackets up and went about our business. About three hours later we were getting ready to go to a friend’s for dinner. Elissa gathered her stuff, but couldn’t find her keys. So she instinctively starts patting her pockets. Not two seconds later I hear her moan, “Ah, gross.” And there it was, two eggs worth of goo dripping out of her pockets. I had to laugh, even though we lost two of those delicious eggs and she had egg yolk all over her jacket.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was pickling. Since the weather has been so weird to us. We just finally harvested about 75 pounds of green tomatoes. I started off eating them, but then began to question how many fried green tomatoes I could eat. It was the most amazing thing. Some of the tomatoes were hard and green on the outside but bright red on the inside, as if they were being torn between ripening an not right on the vine. So to put them out of their indecision, we picked them and pickled them. Although I get tired of pickles after a while, canned green tomatoes just aren’t my thing.

So we pickled. It was pretty easy. We got new mason jar lids from the store. We then collected mason jars from around the house. They were of various sizes and some didn’t fit. But we had enough for a good canning. We rinsed out any dust and then dropped the jars into boiling water for five minutes, along with lids for sterilization. Next we picked them out and set them bottom’s-down on a towel. It’s important that nothing touches the rim for contamination purposes. We then chopped up tomatoes, I picked dill and we cut up some garlic that we didn’t get into the ground. We also made a brine out of water, vinegar, sugar and salt (everyone has a different brine recipe, look up a good one for sweet, hot or mild pickles).

We then put all of the ingredients into the jars using a sterilized funnel at the mouth. Next we put the lids back on tightly, but not too tight, you want to allow room for the suction. We put the jars in the boiling water for twelve minutes with a rag on the bottom of the pot. Not doing so can lead to the glass getting too hot and cracking. After twelve minutes, we put took them out and placed them to cool on a fresh rag. This is a pivotal point. If the lids don’t vacuum seal down, then they are not jared properly for storage and could result in botchulism, which can kill you. Although I did hear that botchulism is harder to get with high acidic fruits like tomatoes, the chance is not worth taking. That being said, don’t be fooled if it doesn’t seal at first. Some just take time as the cool and will most likely happen within the hour.

So go forth and can the rest of your feast. Your stomach will thank you in the winter. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

After a snow storm this weekend and due to the length of the next installment, I’ve decided to forgo the gardening tip this week. Tune in the next for the recovery from the crazy weather.

What’s going on at the homestead:

So I promised a surprise last week, and a surprise you all shall get. Two winters ago, while on the road with Hoots and Hellmouth at the PA Association for Sustainable Ag conference, we were all privileged to hear the keynote speech by garbage warrior and earthship builder Michael Reynolds. He spoke of these amazing closed system houses that provide their own heat, cooling, water, electric, and sanitation systems all while being built out of recycled trash such as tires and plastic bottles, as well as the earth.

It left a huge impression on all of us. Sean Hoots and his now wife (congrats you two) went to Taos to do a week long internship with Mr. Reynold’s company Earthship Biotecture. Their future plan is to build an Earthship on Sean’s family property in Georgia one day. I had the same idea. Not on Sean’s land, but on my future farm. However, being the impulsive sustainable maniac I am, I decided I couldn’t wait. So for the past two weeks, I have been building in my back yard what I am pretty sure is the first Earthship Greenhouse structure in a major US City.

The idea came to life after I met the amazing and talented Rashida Ali-Campbell. Along with being the executive director of the non-profit LoveLovingLove, she is also in the process of bringing the first Urban Earthship house in the United States to Philly. Her vision is simple. An Earthship not only will divert the mass of tires and trash that are routinely dumped in poverty stricken sections of Philadelphia, but it will also provide an affordable housing option for residents who live in these depressed parts of the city. After one afternoon with her, I was convinced that earthships could change this city.

So we kept in touch and I invited her to come do an Earthship demo as part of the Philadelphia Folk Fest green initiatives. While doing the demo, she brought along Eric Fulks. Eric resides in Richmond but is a student of the world. He did an Earthship Biotecture internship for the month of September and also has plans to start his own building and design company. After conversation between the three of us, the idea was born to build the Earthship Greenhouse at Emerlad St. Farm.

After riding up and down Hancock St. for 1 hour, I was able to find 70 tires just on the street. But contruction went much slower. It took us three days and countless volunteers to pack the tires with earth, which is an extremely frustrating task. But as I told a group of really awesome young boys from Germantown who had come out with one of the boy’s father, not only were we building a super strong wall, but we were also building a built in battery. Once those tires and thermal mass charge from the sun, the will be a very powerful heat source.

But how does the sun come through you may ask. Well, to allow for solar energy to pass through, but to make a barrier a bit stronger than a sheet of plastic, we stacked plastic bottles in between the studs of the south wall.

Once they were stacked in, I then sheather them with another layer of plastic, thus making a clear wall that traps air while letting light shine through. On the South east side of the greenhouse are reused windows and the roof is made from recycled corrugated plastic. That was our biggest cost at $220. But the rest of the hardware came to about $80, meaning we built a functioning greenhouse for $300. For those of you who have never worked in a greenhouse, that’s outrageously cheap.

And here’s a cool side view into the finished product. As you can see, we are running rain water off of the roof into rain barrels that we will use to water the plants. I’ve also begun putting wood chips on the floor and soil in there for heat. And I plan to do vermicompost, as well as cobb the tire walls for heat retention. I will admit that this design is by no means perfect. It takes a good deal of experimenting. But what Michael Reynolds has accomplished in the last 30 years is amazing, and I hope that his brilliance comes to Philly. Both to solve our problems with poverty and waste, but also to inspire us to the possibilities of human ingenuity on this planet.

So please, stop by anytime to check out the greenhouse and look for more about Earthship Biotecture coming to Philly in the next few months. Until then, this is the note from Urban Homestead.

What’s in the ground:

This is the point in the season when you’re summer crops are beginning to die down and your fall crops have taken root. But before you go ripping out those summer crops, please, save your seed first. For tomatoes and peppers, it’s simple. If you are preparing a meal and you see a tomato that is perfectly red and round, or a pepper that is so sweet and hearty you’ll have dreams about it, separate the seed. For a pepper it’s a little easier, you just shake them out. For a tomato, you first have to scoop out the goo. I usually put the goo on a paper towel and then I use my pinky to slide the seeds out, leaving the goo behind. Some people like to toast the seeds with the goo to get rid of the water. But I never get the timing right and sometimes crisp them, which isn’t good for the seed.

Once the seed is separated, I let them dry out in the open for about 3 hours on a napkin. You can let them dry for as long as you want, but in my hectic house, I like to get them into a container as soon as possible (after 3 hours). I usually like to use tin containers rather than plastic since plastic can keep in moisture. I’ll then leave these seeds for a few days until I think they are nice and dry and then I put them into brown, paper packets, label them and put them on the shelf. The same can be done for gourds and curcubits.

If you are trying to save seeds from leafy greens or herbs, you need to let the plant go to seed. You’ll notice the bitter flavors and the tall stalk of flowers from the center growth point. Once you see this stalk, again take the best producing and tasting plant, pull it from the ground, and then string it up in a cool, dry place. Once it dries, you can shake the seed from the dead flowers. Some people like to let the plant die and brown in the ground, but I don’t do this. Because you can risk the seed dropping and then volunteering all over your garden next year. The only plant I let die and brown in the garden is beans, because they are easily managed. The dried beans or peas in the pod can then be planted next year.

What’s going on at the homestead:

For this installment I wanted to talk about an extremely big and historic project that took place at the homestead over the weekend. However, it’s not completely finished yet. So, much to Rob Berliner’s chagrin, I’m going to hold off on this story until the next installment, and I’ll keep you all in suspense.

But it’s all for the best because today’s topic is seed saving, which is a little time sensitive at this point in the season. To give a little background, seed saving is one of the most lost, and threatened arts in modern agriculture. With the advent of industrial seed companies, it is far too easy to go to the store and buy all of the seeds that you would need for your garden. And there are many great places to get seeds. Places like High Mowing Seeds and Seeds of Change are great companies from Vermont and New Mexico that do really good, organic work. Then you have places like Landreth Seed Company in Central PA that is threatened with closing down this year if they can’t turn a profit, so you should support them. And also, being so close to Chester County, we have the privilege of Happy Cat Organics run by Mr. Tim Mountz who does amazing things with heirlooms.

So please support these great companies with your business. But monetary support is not always enough. My intention with this article is to get you all to support them with your minds. Because the more mindlessly we all go about our seeds, the more it opens up the door for companies like Monsanto and other industrial seed companies to play on people’s ignorance and monopolize the seed market with their biologically bland hybrids and the even more dangerous Genetically Modified seed. As I said, we have lost those beautiful arts of seed selection, cross pollinating and plant breeding. But if that is not compelling enough to make you save seed, here are a few reasons why you should save seed.

The first is the obvious. When you save seed, you save money. It may not seem like a lot if you have a small garden, but you’ll notice the difference when you start saving. The second reason is that you don’t know what the plant looked like that lead to the pack of seeds you bought. A good company probably saved seed from a really nice plant. But when you do it yourself, you can pick the most delicious, most perfectly shaped, and most hearty of your crop.

And for the third reason, I understand that this blog may risk the accusation of preaching to the chior. But my purpose is to give you all the ideas that you can take back and showcase to your communities. So please, take the techniques I gave you in this installment, and start to save your seed. Myabe go back and start a seed saving club and exchange with your fellow gardeners and farmers. This may even lead to a bigger seed bank. But I can definitely guarantee that it will lead to more consciousness and better farming in your area.

So go forth, spread the seeds of your knowledge and your plants. The earth will surely thank you. Until next time, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

Once again, I hate to let my complaints of the weather dominate this section, but I really have no choice. Last week I was sweating in shorts. Today I’m in layers. The only thing I can suggest is getting ready to do some serious mulching. It’s a really good way to retain heat in the soil and with all of this rain, it will even out your moisture. It’s something that should be done all through out the year, but now more than ever. If you’re short on hay, try drying some green materials from your garden like pulled weeds, and then laying them down next to the plants. Make sure they are dry and you knock the seeds off though, you don’t want weed seed touching your soil.

What’s going on in sustainability:

Yep, that’s me in the DIY bee keeping gear. It just occurred to me that there really are no pictures of me on this blog, so I’m glad that the misquito netting is somewhat keeping that alive. So first, to explain my get up. I couldn’t find the box full of our bee keeping gear. So I went upstairs and found our misquito netting from India. I then took an old brimmed hat, and draped the netting over the brim, then tucking it into a denim jacket, put on some gloves and the result, was this super safe, very fashionable ensemble.

Also, since I couldn’t find my smoker, I used one of those charcoal cylinders that gets coals burning. Why did I do all this you may now be asking. If you remember back a few weeks, my hive mysteriously split and I had to catch the the swarm with the old queen. For three weeks they existed in boxes right next to each other. But at the advice of a good bee keeping friend, I decided to recombine the hives.

So I dressed up in this ridiculous outfit and started smoking the hive out. The smoke scares the bees and forces them to hide in the cells of the comb. The coal burner did a pretty good job. I then used a paint scraper (a new, clean one) to scrape the comb off of the piece of wood I was using as a temporary lid on the other hive. It was so interesting how they made the comb. Since I put a jar of sugar water in the box, they formed a circular comb like they would have in the wild.

Once the comb was off, I then took new, fresh frames and used a rubber band to secure the comb to the frame. I did this because the bees had worked so hard on building comb and probably wouldn’t have been able to make new comb, thus putting their survival in peril. This may sound dramatic, but that’s the only way to describe it. As much as I try to utilize zen movements and mindfulness when working with bees, it gets very intense when you’re dripping sweat inside a bee suit and bees are buzzing all around you. A few weeks back I didn’t have any gear on and I got stung behind my ear.

But thus all went off without a hitch. With a few neighbors watching on the other side of the fence, I rubberbanded the comb on the frames and slipped them back into the new top frame. I then shook off all the bees that were still congregated on the old lid, and put them in the new frame. And then I put the proper lid back on, collected the comb (which I intend to either eat or use for wax), harvested a little honey, and that was that.

Like I said, it was an intense few minutes, but in the end, the bees were fine, the hive was recombined, and wouldn’t you know, two days later I found all of the bee equipment in the basement. So I’ll be better equipped next time. But I got to tell you, I kind of liked the get up. Anyway, that’s the news from the homestead this week. Until next time, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

Finally, after much promise, here are the pictures of the homestead you’ve been reading about.

This is our beehive. Since my last entry, my very good friend and Philadelphia Bee Keeper’s Guild member Dan Duffy combined the hive that left with the old one. Hopefully, the old queen will kill the new queen so our old queen can guide our bees through the winter.

This is our coop set up. In the front of the picture is our laying    house that is attached to the chicken fencing that closes in the run. The hen house in the back of the picture is in the run and is where our hens will spend the winter. Right now they just stand on the lid and poop.

This is a good side view of what the hen house looks like and the run. I really like the little fencing and house. It keeps them contained and we can still let them out to roam around and eat bugs. The chicken in the picture is Tomato. Not shown is her counterpart Tomaato, our alpha hen Mother Clucker and our runt, Tutti.

This is a great shot of our cobb oven and the rest of our community cooking and hanging area. We plan to build this up even more to provide a space where our growers and community members can cook right from the garden. Right now, our dog Honey Pie is enjoying it.

And last but not least, a shot of Emerald St. Urban farm, which my fiance Elissa started a few years ago. It may be just a small city block, but it’s one less vacant lot in our neighborhood and it has been keeping me fed all summer.

So there you are, a little window into our world. And I’ll make a promise, more pictures in my posts. Hopefully for now, these will do. Until the next post, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

This time of year is all about watching and maintaing as the summer crops give their last harvest and the fall crops take root. But with these hurricanes and rain storms, this season will not be as easy. The main two suggestions I will give is to keep monitoring any parts of your garden that you seeded. If you don’t see anything germinate in the next week or so, chances are that the seeds were washed away in the deluge and that you’ll need to reseed. Also, this is the time of year weeds are supposed to subside. But with the massive rain and heat that is accompanying, keep up on those weeds. More on weeds next week.

What’s going on in sustainability:

Once again, I failed to take pictures of all the projects at our house due to the rain. But I do have a good alternative in this story. So this past Friday Elissa, our friend Zack and I were about to set the posts for our new tool shed. Just as we were about to set the first one, Zack stopped working and exclaimed, “Holy Shit!” I looked up and saw what he saw, a tornado of bees swarming around the edge of our proerty, forcing our neighbors walking down the street to take off running. Zack and Elissa panicked, but I told them to stay calm and went back to work. They weren’t too excited about this advice, but they followed. After about an hour, the bees settled on a nearby branch.

Once they were there, and we had two posts set, I told Elissa to grab a box. I then handed Zack a pair of loppers and we walked to the tree. At this point I explained to Zack that the bees were at their most docile and calmest, being that they no longer had a hive to protect. Once Elissa got back to the tree, I told her to put the box underneath, I grabbed the branch and told Zack to cut. Just like that the branch was on my hand and then the bees were in the box. And we went back to building the shed.

The next morning I ran to a fellow bee keepers house and picked up a few supers (bee boxes) where the new bees would live. I set them up close to the old hive, put in the frames and left room for a container of sugar water. Since there was no comb built on the frames, the bees will not have enough time to create and store honey, so I’ll have to feed them through out the winter. Once everything was in place, Elissa brought the box over, I opened it, grabbed the branch and shook the bees into the new hive. I earned a few “Bad ass points” for doing this from my housemate Rainer. But in all honesty, handling swarming bees is a less bad ass than it sounds. It was actually quite easy.

So why did my bees swarm? I initially thought that conditions were not good in the hive. But I was confused, because as many of the bees swarmed, I still saw a good many coming and going from the old hive. So I went into the hive and took out a frame. Aside from a ton of bees in the frame, inside the comb were little brown, peanut looking pieces. What I came to find out was that they were new queen cocoons. Apparently, my hive produced a new queen, forcing the old queen out in what is referred to as colony split. The bees I saw on the branch were led by the old queen out of the hive for a new place to live. Although this is odd for this time of year, I’m happy that I was able to catch them and give them their new hive. I just hope they survive.

So that’s my bee story. Next time, I promise to have pics. For now, I have to run out the door to the Shale Outrage protest outside of the Convention Center in Philadelphia. Inside many industry executives are meeting to plot the course for Natural Gas Extraction in the state. We hope that they will hear our voice that what they are doing is not only the definition of unsustainability, but more so insanity. In a last ditch effort to hang onto the fossil fuel resource economy, they are poisoning the land and water that we can’t afford to lose. We can live without fossil fuels, without water, not so much.

So I’m going to go fight the good fight. Until next time, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

This part of the season is all about maintenance. The weather is getting temperate, rain is steadier (when hurricanes aren’t hitting the coast) and the transition is being made between crops. So aside from just keeping the bugs away and monitoring the crops, I love to use this time of year to focus on the perimeter of my garden. I know it gets really hard in the height of the season and heat to care about this, but now is a good time to go beyond just scanning your garden for weeds and to really dig up problem areas, look for bigger weed trees that have taken root, and prep the land with wood chips to stop growth. You’ll thank yourself next spring for all the hard work you do right now. Remember, your border is just as important as your beds. Keeping both healthy leads to a healthy garden in whole.

What’s going on in sustainability:

So I know that I missed a week, but it was for good cause. I spent the last week (and plenty of time before that) working on a brand new committee to Green the Philadelphia Folk Fest. I’m not sure how I kind of fell ass backwards into this, but with the support of Rob Berliner, Todd Henkin of the Great Unknown and I worked to bring some great sustainable measures. It wasn’t easy, but in the short time that we flew blind through the process we got almost all of the styrofoam out of the volunteer and artist hospitality, promoted local food, scheduled sustainability workshops, set up composting stations, and brought in the Sustainable Living Road Show (a traveling sustainability carnival from the bay area) to the fest. And it was amazing.

We diverted about fifty trash bags worth of compostable materials from the landfill. We brought a lot of attention to our efforts with our promotion of local foods and workshops, and we were able to make it fun by having the Roadshow there to entertain the campground with a solar stage where Hoots and Hellmouth rocked Friday night and Mason Porter and friends rocked Saturday. But most importantly, we rooted ourselves in the festival and we learned some very key things.

The first lesson was one sorely needed in activist circles: patience. Too often activists are so passionate and worried about the state of the world that they want everything to change yesterday.  At the end of the weekend we ran out of compostables and had to resort to styrofoam. We couldn’t get composting going in the vendors section of the fest and our workshops were not always so well attended. But we accomplished everything we set out to do and we formed the great relationships that will give us the opportunity to keep our committee going into the future and we learned the lessons that will help us be more efficient in the future. Because that’s what real sustainability needs. Not trying to change everything in one event. But to root yourself in that system and make those small incremental changes that will lead to those wider shifts to a more sustainable future.

This is not always easy when dealing with a large bureaucratic organization. Especially an organization like the folk fest that runs more like a county fair than a major concert promoter. At the end of the weekend we received a lot of critiques. Some were by people who advised us to sub contract out our composting, product buying and programming to major sustainable organizations. As much as I believe in the need to create industries out of sustainability, I also feel that we need organizations like the folk fest to promote real and lasting sustainable changes. Sure, some major for profit festivals may be zero waste and may do some really cool things. But what they lose when they pay for all of these services is the amazing power of grassroots organizing that is so essential both to the folk fest and to make those major societal shifts. So although it was very hard to make all of the moving pieces of other committees work together to make things more sustainable, if we root ourselves enough in the culture of the fest and make those small changes then we can create change that comes from the bottom up and is reliant on people putting their energies and their minds together. And to me that’s the best kind of change, and that’s what folk culture is all about.

So here’s to those changes and here’s to another great fest. If you weren’t there, you not only missed many great acts, but you missed one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from Hoots and Hellmouth. I think I have seen them about 30 times, and never got chills up my spine like I did when they finished with the old folk tune, Samson. But hopefully I’ll see you at next years fest. Until then and until our next edition, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

This is the point of the season where you begin the painful process of learning how to let go. Although your peppers and your tomatoes still have many more good weeks ahead of them, I’m sure you’re looking at those squash plants that are beginning to weaken around the vine, or those cucumbers that are starting to fry, and you are saying, “I can get one more crop out of them.” But alas, the season is moving on and it’s almost time to start making room for those fall crops like another round of collards, kale and broccoli. Although it may not feel like it now, if you don’t get a good jump on getting those crops in the ground, you won’t have enough time to get them to mature into the fall months. And as a seasoned gardener can attest, there’s nothing better than a late fall crop. So begin the act of reconciling that the season is moving on, and in the next two weeks start to make room for those fall crops.

What’s going on in sustainability:

I hope that my past few entries brought some amusement and some awareness of the bounty and beauty of the homestead life. So I don’t feel bad about doing a little advocating for this installment. Over the past few months as I’ve delved deeper into the homestead life, I’ve found myself in conversations with people who are intrigued by what we are doing, yet somewhat defensive of their own lifestyle when the conversation turns toward their own sustainable practices.

Everyone wants to be sustainable these days. But as I’ve witnessed in the two very key areas of waste and conservation, the corporate powers of the consumer culture are writing a narrative about sustainability that is skewing the data and leading people astray. Now, I intended to do a lot of research and get a bunch of statistics together to back my argument. But as Homer Simpson once famously quoted, “Statistics! You can use statistics to prove anything. 60% of all people know that.” So I’ll go with observation and common sense.

The number one reason why I am writing this entry is in furious opposition to that infernal device that supports to hyper active middle class, the dishwashing machine. Many years ago I vowed never to own one for a whole host of reasons. The first being that weird taste that infects every item on the racks when just one piece of plastic is introduced into the cycle. Then there are the whole issues of the massive energy and water usage. Now every time I bring this up to a sustainably minded middle class person, they point out that dubious statistic that more water is saved by running the dishwasher than by washing by hand.

I’ll make a confession, I did just google this query and I got a whole host of answers. Many times, the ones in favor of dishwashers are somehow attached to studies done by people who manufacture dish washing equipment. The one argument for using the machine is always the same. A machine usually uses 4 gallons of water while a tap emits 2 gallons of water per minute. Meaning that unless you can wash all your dishes in 2 minutes, loading up the dishwasher to full capacity is more efficient. But ponder this. Most people who are sustainably minded enough to wash a dish don’t just let the water run the whole time they wash. And after the dishes are washed it’s usually left up to the brilliant method of air drying rather than the energy it takes to heat up the machine, thus leaving that nasty plastic taste. And furthermore, it’s always been my observation that you never put a soiled dish in the washer. So you rinse your plate off first, basically cleaning it, then put it in this machine. It’s madness.

And the madness continues with that fact that most dishes don’t even make it to the dishwasher in the first place. In a bizarre combination of the cheapness of plastic products and now the dubious claim that almost everything under the sun is recyclable, I’m now beginning to often encounter people who will claim it’s more sustainable to recycle their wares rather than run the dishwasher! This claim is usually made with the giddy, almost childlike wonder of the magical process that is recycling. We don’t know how these products are reconstituted or the percentage of waste that actually is made into something new, but we’re told it’s sustainable so we do it with glee. The common sense facts are that it takes a ton of energy to run the trucks to pick up the recycling, the machines to sort and repurpose into raw material, and the fabrication of a new product. This whole energy stream could be eliminated if we just remember the other two R’s, reducing and reusing.

But that was before sustainability made it’s way into big business. Now don’t get me wrong. I think the most important way to create a sustainable society is to do it through jobs and industry. But it’s not going to be easy. And right now huge corporations are shirking the needed sacrifice by promoting this misinformation amongst a professional population who wants to do the sustainable thing as long as it fits in with their schedule and budget.

Well, nothing is going to change if we approach the problems of waste and resources with such injudicious energy. I know it may be hard to solve the problem with everyone devoting their lives to the homestead lifestyle as much as I have. But really we don’t need that. We just need people to look for answers with a little more depth than the Nightline news story that is followed by a Maytag Commercial. And for goodness sake, just wash a dish.

That’s all I got. Until next time, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

Due to the length of this weeks story, there is no gardening tip.

What’s going on in the homestead:

The following post will contain a depiction that may anger or sicken our vegetarian friends, so reader discretion is advised. Elissa and I have now taken that next step of homesteading, and for the first time we have killed our own meat. As you may remember from past blog posts, Elissa and I became the proud owners of six chickens this past Spring, at least we thought we had six chickens. But as the little chicks began to grow up, and we noticed one getting taller and taller, and more aggressive, I had my worries. It wasn’t until we heard the first crow that we realized we had a rooster in our midst, and that action needed to be taken.

Now, this action was not taken out of bloodlust or spite, there was actually a very pragmatic reason for killing our rooster. As the hens and the rooster matured, and as nature ran its course, the rooster began mounting the hens and attempting to fertilize them. This is problematic for two reasons. When the rooster does this, it stresses the hens out and throws there cycle off, inhibiting their egg production. It also makes the fertilized egg spend more time in the chicken’s body and when they are hatched, the chicken becomes much more “broody” over them, meaning that they protect the eggs, which are still edible even though they are fertilized. Plus, five hens and a rooster was just too much for our space, so it was time for Bob’s Your Uncle (which was his name) to go.

We started by doing insane amounts of research. We consulted a great book I suggest to any aspiring homesteader, The Encyclopedia to Country Living. And we watched a few you tube videos, some very informative, some horrifying, some hilarious. And from this research, we came up with this method.

First, we built a killing cone. Now this sounds like a horrible contraption, but it’s actually the most humane thing we found. I didn’t want to chop the rooster’s head off on a block because I didn’t know if I could muster the strength under such circumstances. I also didn’t want to wring it’s neck for the same reasons. So we took a cue from Joel Salatin’s operation at Poly Face farm, and we made a cone out of an old painting I did when I was 19, and was throwing away because, quite frankly, it was a painting I did when I was 19 (aka terrible). We bent it into a cone and duct taped it to hold it in place, then nailed it to the side of a compost in and put a bucket underneath to catch the blood. Elissa then went into the coop, where we cleared out all the other hens, leaving only Bob, and caught him. She instantly brought him close to her body to calm him down, which worked. We then put him in the cone, pulling his head through the bottom and made sure his body was tightly packed into the cone. This is an important step because as we saw on you tube, it is true that a chicken runs around with its head cut off. By keeping the body enclosed, you avoid that messy situation and keep the chicken calm. Once Bob’s head was through, I grabbed the head, and said a very solemn prayer. The whole day we were keeping it pretty light. But at that moment, things were getting very serious. As I later saw in the video that was shot by Hoot’s own Rob Berliner, I started to hyperventilate as I took the knife to its jugular and slit on a downward angle. I slit down because I wanted to avoid cutting the windpipe. It took me a second to get through the skin (in the future I would have pulled the head back even more to make it tight) but when I did, the blood poured into the bucket, Bob struggled a bit, but after about 30 seconds, he was completely still.

After taking a few moments to breathe, we enacted our factory style system for cleaning and cooking. First, after cutting Bob’s head clean off, we threw the body in scalding water. it’s important to make sure it’s not boiling otherwise you can risk cooking the skin prematurely and making it hard to cut. After a minute of a scald, we pulled him out, dipped him in cold water and then began plucking. This was the easiest part of the process. The feathers almost fell out. Once defeathered, the body looked like it would at a butcher or farmer’s market and it made the process much easier and less emotional. I then chopped off the feet at the knee joint, and slit down the sides of each leg to the anus. Once the cavity was opened, I began pulling out the innards. This process is pretty easy, but you have to be very careful not to break the gallbladder, which is a very large green pouch. It’s actually the first thing you grab. If you break this, it can release bile that makes the meat almost inedible. Once cleaned out, we rinsed him in cold water again. I then carved off the thighs, the wings and sliced off the breast, we threw if in tin foil with a marinade and slow cooked it on the grill.

When I first started this process I thought it was going to be like the bees, a lot of research and process that goes by in a few hectic minutes. But our process was very deliberate, slow and basically flawless. And it only took us about 2 and a half hours from catching Bob to sitting down and eating him. This was the weirdest part of the experience. Talk about knowing your meat, it was surreal to ask to “Pass Bob” when asking for another helping of chicken. As for the meat, the breast was a little tough, but the legs were dark and hearty. It was like turkey. Many in attendance were surprised that you could even eat rooster, but I explained to them that this was the ultimate farm meal. No farmer in his right mind would raise rooster for meat, too many roosters euals too many problems. So sometimes, on the farm, these are the natural progressions of the cycle of life. And I’ll tell you what, the next morning after the kill when I went out to clean the coop, there were two eggs sitting there waiting for me, and the cycle of life continued.

So stay tuned for the next installment as that cycle keeps going. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

As the summer season kicks in, I find that the biggest question I’m being asked by first time gardeners is, “What do I do with my tomatoes?” This question is usually asked with a good mix of excitement, pride, and sheer fear. Although the heavy rains of spring and hot temperatures of early summer have wreaked havoc on other plants, the summer is shaping up to be a great tomato season. And for most of these novice gardeners, they are shocked that they were able to grow such lush and thriving plants on their first try, but are a bit overwhelmed by all the growth. So here’s my advice, prune. The few times I’ve given this advice to gardeners this season, they look at me, then the plant, and then back to me with an expression that seems to say, “But they’re so big.” This may be so, but you must put pride aside. If  not maintained, even the lushest plant won’t be worth the gardener’s time. Too much low lying fruit adds unneeded stress to the plants weaker limbs, too much sporadic plant growth drains energy that can go towards producing fewer quality tomatoes rather than a huge quantity of mediocre tomatoes, and one of the hardest places to harvest is in a jungle of leaves.

So pruning is necessary to give good shape to the plant and improve growth, and it’s not that hard. First, obviously start off by clipping all dried out leaves. Sometimes, these yellow leaves could be signals of fungal disease, other times they are just thirsty. Either way you want them off the plant. Next, move up the plant, searching for places to thin. If a branch has a lot of yellow flowers or tomatoes, obviously you want to leave them. So go for branches that are cluttering the plant, or getting tangled with other plants. And don’t be afraid of cutting the wrong branch. If two branches are side by side and both have leaves, either one is going to produce, so it’s basically arbitrary. Just make sure you are keeping the plant even, with a good amount of branches up and down the plant, starting from about a foot off the ground. When you clip a branch, make sure to use good, clean garden shears, and cut as close to the stem as possible to save energy. Also, never prune before or after a rain or watering. Doing so invites disease. But not pruning at all will only get you a mess of a plant and hard to reach fruit. So take care of those tomato plants and they’ll take care of you.

What’s going on at the homestead:

It’s good that I took up so much space with my garden tip because there’s not too much to report on the homestead. We did find out one of our chickens is a rooster. I can actually hear him crowing in the yard as I write this entry. It may seem cool, but he’s actually getting a little annoying as he’s chasing the hens around the coop, trying to mount them. He will actually be the subject of the next installment.

But for now, all I can say is that life is really pleasant around here. It’s the first summer that I’m not working for a major organization, which is giving me time to wake up every morning, let the chickens out to run the yard while I refill there water, check on the bees to watch them make their comb, and do little projects around the house. I actually just chopped down some bamboo at a neighbors house, bound three large pieces together to make a stud, of which I made three, put them into the ground, and then bound other pieces of bamboo together to make an arbor where I’ll have my grapes grow up. I’m putting up a clothes line today, and tending to my berry bushes each evening.

These experiences have become so routine, that insight rarely strikes me, yet every now and then, it does. This usually comes when I stop and think, “I have a book out that needs to be marketed, I have no steady income, should I really be out here chasing chickens and watching bees?” Well, when I get to thinking like that, I take another look around at the world Elissa and I created for ourselves and the creatures around us. Sure, I need money and I want to be successful, but there’s just something about this pace of life that I wouldn’t give up for anything. And as I create my success, and as I start to think of ways to make money, I’m glad I’m doing these things around a homestead lifestyle, rather than trying to fit the homestead lifestyle into a busy professional schedule.

I can’t say for sure where all of these things will lead, and I can’t say if everything I plant in the ground, both figuratively and literally, will bear fruit, but I can say that life is really good this season, and I’ll figure those other things out in the next one. So until then, keep those tomatoes pruned and stop every now and then to take a look around at your possible homestead. And stay tuned next time as I take urban homesteading to a whole new level.

Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic