Mike talks about how to lose weight by reasonable dieting, cycling, and a new outlook on his health.
photo by kcconnors
Author: Eric
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Self Watering Pots for Rooftop Garden
A friend made these DIY Self Watering Plant Containers for his green roof, and I wanted to share them with you. He built a small deck on the roof of his building in Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY, and watches GardenFork to learn how to do stuff. neat.
These self watering planters are homemade, he stacked two 5 gallon buckets on top one another, cut a hole in the bottom of the upper bucket, slid a perforated pipe in there, and cut a slot in the side to fill up the water reservoir. I’m going to have to make a GF how-to video on how to make self watering containers.
Rooftop gardens need constant watering in the summer, the plants dry out in the hot sun quickly. In Brooklyn you add to that the breeze coming off New York Bay, and you get dessicated plant leaves quickly.
Vegetable plants that work well for rooftop gardens are ones that do well in the summer heat. Peppers are great, lettuce not so great. Squash, especially winter squash, do well, and because their vines sprawl all over a roof, they also create a cooling effect for the roof, shading it with the large squash plant leaves.
Herbs like basil, sage, rosemary – those from the Mediterranean – are good for rooftops.
We’ve done a how-to video on making a drip irrigation system for a rooftop garden here. The drip irrigation system uses soaker hoses, its an inexpensive way to water your rooftop garden. Here is another soaker hose drip irrigation video we made for our vegetable garden.
How do you water your roof or patio garden? Let us know below:
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Worm Composter Barrel by Rick : GardenFork Radio
Rick’s homemade worm composter; we learn more about how rick made a worm composter out of a barrel. Rick also posted a how-to video on our site here on how you can make worm composter, and gives us some more pointers.
How to make kefir: Producer Sarah tell us how she made kefir, a fermented milk beverage, with special grains she ordered on the web KefirLady.com . You can’t just start making kefir, you have to get the grains from someone. We will be talking about how to make your own soap with Sarah soon, btw.
Rick isn’t into smoothies, we learn. And Eric confesses that he forgot to post the cedar jelly tasting from the Cedar Jelly a viewer sent us.
If you chain saw wont start, watch this how-to video, and then listen to us talk about chain saw repair
Rick is growing malibar spinach in his aquaponics greenhouse, its not a true spinach, it is a vine and you harvest the leaves. You can read more about Rick’s aquaponics and aquaculture here.
How to pollinate tomatoes in a greenhouse? Rick tell us how to pollinate vegetables in a greenhouse with a toothbrush, you have to listen to this to understand how Rick does this.
Gary House of Cooking-Outdoors.com has posted several articles on how to cook with a dutch oven here on our site. A big thank you again to him for doing that. check out his new DVD on his site here.
Rick is hoping the cast iron foundry startup Borough Furnace will make a cast iron dutch oven soon.
The letterpress shop Eric talks about is Hatch Show Print
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Energy Saving Lights in the Food Store
I rarely go to large grocery stores, between the local food coop, and our locally owned grocery store, I avoid them.
But this week I had to go to the DMV, and afterward I wandered around the shopping mall nearby. I went into the large store that sells all sorts of stuff, including a large food section, and I noticed that the lights in a bunch of the food coolers and freezers were off. I thought that someone needed to replace those bulbs soon.
Then the lights in the coolers near me started to turn on. I looked closer at the coolers and realized each one had motion sensors. Neat.
The retail world is big on lighting products just so, especially food, to make it look great. I found it interesting and a big turnaround for the grocery business to turn off the lights on some of its products.
A couple of things in my head right now:
What kind of lights are used in the motion sensor equipped coolers? Turning lights on and off many times a day can reduce the life of a bulb, and it takes energy to turn on a light. So I’m wondering how the cooler designers figured out that tradeoff.
And I’m curious how the energy savings works out. It must work, or this large store would not be doing it.
I see so many office buildings with the lights on late at night, and most of them are empty, though some of them are now equipped with motion sensor lights, now we see it in the grocery store.
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Surfcasting with Lures How-to GF TV Video
Surfcasting, saltwater fishing from shore, is easy to do, and a great way to learn how to catch fish. In this how-to video we use lures at the beach to fish for striped bass and bluefish. Ocean fishing like this is not complicated, and i’m all about simple is good.
We went surfcasting at Fort Tilden Park, on the border of Queens & Brooklyn in New York City; its pretty wild to be in the city, yet on the ocean, weird dichotomy there between the urban business and the calm of the ocean surf.
A couple of things I learned about ocean fishing on this trip:- Bring along water friendly shoes like those sandles with big holes in them, or don’t wear shoes at all if its warm enough
- Apply sunblock, the bigger the SPF number the better. Even if its cloudy, you should protect your skin.
- Make sure you have the proper permits and are allowed to be fishing where you are fishing. I’m big on following the rules, that’s why they are there.
- Pay attention to bag limits and eating limits. Around NYC, the fish have accumulated some chemicals in their flesh that you don’t want to eat large amounts of.
- Buy used surfcasting gear on craigslist, our suggestion is 10- 12′ lightweight rod and spinning reel. I used braided line for the first time in this video and it worked well.
A big thank you to my friend Brian and his dad Jack.
We’ll do more fishing videos in the near future, i’m all about eating food that is locally harvested. What are your surfcasting tips? Let us know below:
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Cold Frame & Hoop House How To With Nikki Jabbour : GF Radio 258
Learn how to build a cold frame and extend your growing season with Nikki Jabbour, author of The Year Round Vegetable Gardener. We talk with Nikki about how to use a cold frame to start plant early and keep your harvest going into winter, even in Canada! ( Nikki lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, btw )
Recycling stuff you were going to throw out into cloches is a big light bulb moment for Eric, and the fact that holes in your lettuce greens at a store or restaurant means that bugs were on them, and that is a good thing, meaning it probably wasn’t sprayed with insecticide, is the other lightbulb moment for Eric.
We talk about ways to extend your growing season without spending a lot of money on fancy greenhouses, in other words, how to grow vegetables in the snow. The cool thing about Niki’s outlook is that its based on her learning as you go method, much like gardenfork. Simple and easy, made out of recycled materials.
I’m interested in the idea of using newspaper hats as a simple cloche to protect plants for frost. stay tuned.
Read our review of The Year Round Vegetable Gardener here
Order Nikki’s book from Amazon here. (affiliate link)
Watch our how to build a hoop house video here.
Watch our how to build a cold frame video here.
A big thank you to Jean Ann Van Krevelen for introducing Niki to us, what fun.
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Easy Container Garden You Can Create
Here’s a easy container patio garden in front of one of my favorite food places in Brooklyn, Brancaccio’s Food Shop. Its square foot gardening on steroids, and it works really well. Take a few oak wine barrels and a few plastic plant containers, and stuff them full of plants, and your done.
Container Garden using wooden barrels The container garden looks great, basil, tomatoes, mustards, parsley, eggplant, chives, chard all mixed together.
Joe’s container garden does not have a drip irrigation system, so it needs to be watered almost every day, but its in a perfect spot in front of his store, with plenty of sun, and its right on the sidewalk, an added bonus to everyone who walks by. ( here is a GF Drip Irrigation Video )
You can use all sorts of containers for a patio garden, the mix of wood barrels and plastic plant pots here shows that mantra: ‘use what you got or can get’
Regular potting soil, the kind you buy in bags works fine for container gardens, just make sure whatever pot you are using has drain holes in the bottom.
As we ate our amazing meatball sandwiches, ( read about this great meatball sandwich here ) I realize Joe had fig tree growing out of one of the containers in his patio garden. Neat.
Joe appears in this easy pasta recipe GardenFork video, pasta with poppy seeds.
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Swarm Box Bait Hive from political signs
Need Swarm Box or Bait Hive plans? Check out this honeybee bait hive made from those corrugated plastic lawn signs you see for politicians and yard sales. I’ve been making swarm boxes from old honeybee supers and old frames, but GardenFork viewer Howard upcycled some of those plastic signs you see in people’s front yards.
Swarm boxes, aka bait hives are placed a few hundred feet from a beeyard in an attempt to attract any swarm that comes out of your beeyard. You’d rather not have a swarm go off and start a new colony in a hollow tree, its best to ‘recapture’ the bees and put them in a hive.
Here’s Howard’s note to me:
I did not think it would work to attract a swarm, since it is made of plastic and not wood. Well, yesterday a swarm went into one on my deck, even with old deep boxes also being around. So I guess they might work after all. They are nice and light. Better to fill with frames if you have them, otherwise if you don’t know there is a swarm in there soon after they move in, they will fill the empty space with comb from the top. Oh, for the top, I screwed another piece on top, then wrapped string around the whole thing so it can be hung from a tree limb. The frame is 1X3 lath I cut in two lengthwise.
Great way to recycle or upcycle some of those signs, which have a short life as a sign for an event or election. I have seen people use the wire stakes that hold those signs as plant supports in the garden.
How do you upcycle stuff? Let us know below:
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Tomato Planting Tips & Selection with Priscilla : GF Radio
How to plant tomatoes? What kind of heirloom tomatoes to grow? What about hybrid tomatoes? Which are the best ones? we talk with tomato growing expert & Eric’s neighbor, Priscilla the Egg Lady about how to grow tomatoes, tomato planting, and all things tomato.
Every year Priscilla selects way too many varieties to grow in her green house, and she sells the seedlings in her roadside farmstand. We get our tomato plants from her every year. This year she used Solo brand cups to grow her tomato transplants, and it looks like it worked out well, the plants we got are well rooted and slipped easily out of the cups. Remember to plant the seedling deeper than it was growing in the pot. By planting the seedling this way, new roots will grow out from the part of the steam that is below the soil line, which makes the plant stronger. this is helpful in areas where there is a lot of wind, and also helps to keep the plant from drying out quickly, as the roots are deeper.
Juliette is my favorite tomato plant of the moment, last year it was the best tomato we planted. its a grape style tomato that was resistant to disease and kept on producing well.
Priscilla was on GF Radio last year talking about how to grow tomatoes, listen here.
You can watch our how to grow tomato videos here
What are you tomato growing tips & ideas? let us know below:
photo by hotblack
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Chainsaw Wont Start – Chain Saw Repair : GF Video
Chainsaw wont start? Wondering how to fix a chainsaw and the chainsaw to start? Watch our how to fix a chainsaw video and you will be on your way. Chainsaw repair is not hard, and if you’re ready to go out in the yard and cut down some trees, your chainsaw has probably been sitting in the shop all winter. Follow these simple chainsaw tune up steps, and you will have your chainsaw running in a few minutes.
We have to talk about chainsaw safety here as well. Chainsaws are the most dangerous tool a homeowner can own without a license. I have a few friends with scars from using chainsaws improperly. Chainsaw chaps, a helmet, face shield, eye protection, steel toed boots are all mush-haves for safety.
Sharp chainsaw chains is key in cutting up trees and cutting firewood, you can sharpen your own chainsaw chains, but I suggest you have them done at your local small engine repair shop, they have the right equipment to set the correct cutting angle, a hand file can’t do that.
There’s more tree felling in my future, we have a few white pines on our property that need to come down, lest they come down on our house or garage, one of them is already splitting down the trunk, so we need to deal with that one soon.
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How To Cook With Cast iIron Dutch Ovens with Gary House
This is the second of a series of articles about how to cook in a dutch oven, dutch oven recipes, and how to season cast iron and dutch ovens by Gary House, of Cooking-Outdoors.com. A big thank-you to Gary for contributing this.
Last time we talked about the different types and sizes of Dutch ovens available to cook meals outdoors in. By now, you should have a solid idea of where to start in purchasing a Dutch oven for you and your family or perhaps you have resurrected that dusty black pot that’s been sitting in the corner since you brought it home.
Dutch oven cooking can become somewhat addictive, so I must warn you early, you can’ just own one! They seem to grow magically as time goes by, first a 12” then a 10”, maybe I need a 12” deep and really, a 14” is not as big as Gary says, etc. I have a collection of 10 active Dutch ovens, those that I keep handy to use on a weekly basis, but hidden away in the garage are another dozen “collectables” that need to be seasoned or I have to remove the rust, etc. This collection just seems to grow and grow and grow, consider yourselves warned.For those of you with the will power to minimize and control those urges (un-like myself), there are a few accessories that you will want to add to your Dutch oven cooking arsenal.
Undoubtedly, the most important item you can start to add to your collection is a cooking platform; you need something to place your hot coals on when you cook with your Dutch oven. The bare ground is not a good option, as it will suck the life out of your coals in record time (a campground fire pit would be an exception as the ground there has baked into a hard heat-reflecting surface and will give you a solid cooking base). Those 45 minutes to an hour cooking time that you planned will reduce to 30 minutes or less if you just place your coals and Dutch oven directly on the dirt.I started out with a simple 32-gallon garbage can lid. Just pop the handle off, stomp it flat and it will last for years (I still have my 5 year old model). If you are looking for a Dutch oven dedicated cooking table to use at home and when you go camping you have a few options:
Table
Lodge, Camp Chef and several other manufactures offer nice models that will run you $100 or more. Think about these things before you buy yours:
How many Dutch ovens do you plan to cook with at one time?
• 2 to 4 pots at one time then stick with a Lodge http://lodgemfg.com or Camp Chef www.CampChef.com Dutch oven cooking table.
• Six plus Dutch ovens get yourself a custom table from a reputable source.
My big Dutch oven cooking table comes from www.chuckwagonsupply.com, it holds 9 Dutch ovens at a time plus room to hang my tools.
Folding legs or stationary?
• Folding legs means you can travel with it.
Windscreen?
• This should come with the table but sometimes it’s extra and it is quite necessary. The wind can cause all kinds of havoc with your cooking times, so a screen is very important.
Carrying case?
• This is usually extra and worth every penny in my opinion
Height?
• Important! The higher the table the higher you have to lift those pots and if you decide to stack your Dutch ovens (cooking one on top of the other), you will want a low platform that reaches to just above your knees.
Weight?
• Bigger = heavier, longer lasting and more difficult to transport but I think the positives far outweigh the weight issue.
Utensils
Just the basics to get started, if you’re like me, you will add so much more stuff as time goes by that you shake your head in wonder – why didn’t I buy a bigger truck!
Gloves – leather welder’s gloves that cover the lower half of your arm
Lid lifter – indispensable tool that has multiple uses in addition to acting as a solid place to set your lid when you have to stir the pot or add additional food to your recipe
Charcoal tongs – Goes without saying that charcoal burns, so you will need a tool to move those hot coals around the Dutch oven as you cook
Charcoal chimney – used to light your charcoal briquettes with a single sheet of newspaper
Wisk broom – helps to dust the ashes of the Dutch oven lid and table
Lighter – or matches, your choice. Some people use flame throwers!
Safety gear
Never leave home without them!
Fire extinguisher
Shovel – a small shovel to move the spent briquettes from the cooking table to the bucket
Ash bucket – use a galvanized pail with a lid for safe transportation and storage
First aid/burn kit
Dutch oven cooking can be as simple as you want or need it to be, do not obsess over all of the accessories available, what you should or should not have, etc. Remember, it only takes one pot and a recipe to produce a fantastic meal. Cooking outdoors in a Dutch oven is a rewarding adventure that can keep your taste buds delighted for many years to come.
Next time we will discuss how to take care of all that cast iron I have talked you into buying!Part Two of our Dutch Oven Cooking Series by Gary House, creator of www.Cooking-Outdoors.com; an excellent source for all things about outdoor cooking, including Grill & Smoker reviews, recipes, and videos.
Gary is also the host of a new DVD, Taking Your Dutch Oven To The Max, using the dutch oven to smoke, grill, and even make ice cream.
Listen to Gary on this episode of GardenFork Radio talk about how to season cast iron, how to use a dutch oven, and dutch oven recipes.
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Amaranth Urban Foraging Edible Green
Urban Foraging while walking the Labs, I ran across a familiar sight in urban areas, an edible green, a type of amaranth that farmers refer to as pigweed.
Amaranth comes in several versions, the one pictured here is not one of the more floral ones, but it is an urban edible green that you’ll see in tree pits , parks, and weedy lots and roadsides.
The more visually striking amaranth varieties have names like Golden or Elephant. Golden Amaranth has a huge head of small flowers that lean over from the top of a tall stalk. Elephant Amaranth is purple pink and looks like an elephant trunk.You can eat the leaves of all these amaranth varieties, and harvest the seed/grain of those that have substantial flower heads. The weedy version I found in the city doesn’t have much of a flower.
You can eat the leaves raw, but most cultures cook the leaves. In New York I’ve heard amaranth also called calaloo, which in Jamiaca is the name of the plant and the name of a dish made with amaranth.
Depending on who you ask, amaranth is a weed or a healthy source of vitamins. Pigweed amaranth fills up farmer’s fields yet cooks use amaranth.
Do you grow or cook with amaranth? Let us know below:
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DIY Worm Composting How-To : GF Radio
How to do worm composting in your house is our main topic. Rick has almost zero waste in his house by using worms to compost his kitchen scraps. Rick tell us how to make your own worm composting bins and where to get composting worms, aka red wigglers. You can also use night crawlers for worm composting.
Rick shreds paper, be it junkmail or newspapers for bedding material and mixes this with the food scraps from the kitchen into his worm composter. He tells about how to make your own worm composter and where to locate the composter in your home. And how to aerate your worm compost bin with a home made rig.
Fruit flies are easily controlled with the shredded paper and keeping the worm bin not too wet.
How to build an aquaponics system is next, Rick tell us how to make your own aquaponics or aquaculture system. If you have an aquarium, you have half the the parts to an aquaponics system. Balancing the pH of the system of a challenge. Right now Rick is using goldfish to fine tune his system, he is growing tomatoes, lettuce, peppers with his aquaculture system.
You can read some of Ricks aquaponics how-to posts here.
photo by Kahanaboy
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Squash Vine Borer Treament Prevention #1 : GF Video
Squash Vine Borer eating your squash, pumpkin, and zucchini plants every year? Squash plants dying? Here’s how to prevent squash vine borers from eating your squash plants. The borer is the caterpillar of the Melittia cucurbitae moth. The moth lays eggs at the base of young squash plants, both winter squash, summer squash, and pumpkins and the eggs hatch and the caterpillar burrows into the stem of the squash plant, eating the plant from the inside out.
How To Prevent & Protect Squash Plants with our how to video:
There are several ways to prevent the squash vine borer from destroying your plants, I’ve heard about wrapping the stem in foil or pantyhose to confuse the moth, or placing a square of aluminum foil around the base of the young plant is said to confuse the moth. I have also seen larvae enter the squash plant farther up the stem, so using foil or stockings may or may not work. There are also commercial sprays to deter the moth.
Borer Prevention
Our borer prevention method we learned from our neighbor Priscilla, who can be heard on these GardenFork Radio episodes on growing heirloom tomatoes. The one good thing about Squash Vine Borers is they have only one egg cycle, so once you get your plants past the egg laying time of the moth, you can relax about your squash plants drying from squash vine borers.
You can buy floating row fabric from Fedco Seeds Growing Supplies here.
Check out our gardening how-to video on how to prevent Squash Vine Borers from ruining your squash plants. Let us know how you keep the borers from killing your squash plants below:
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Wedding Etiquette For Eric GF Radio
A special guest joins eric to talk about wedding etiquette, IOW, how to behave at weddings, luna moths, poached eggs, moving beehives, and ledge birdhouses.
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Dutch Oven Cooking Adventures
This is the first of a series of articles about how to cook in a dutch oven, dutch oven recipes, and how to season cast iron and dutch ovens by Gary House, of Cooking-Outdoors.com. A big thank-you to Gary for contributing this.
Adventures in Dutch oven cooking
The first time I ever saw a Dutch oven in use was on TV. I remember it quite well as I was sick in bed flipping channels on TV and up pops this show about cooking outdoors and they were using a Dutch oven! Even as sick as I was at the time, I knew this was something I had to try, something new and exciting for the family and I. After lots of research, I finally decided to buy my first Dutch oven, a 12” camp Dutch oven seemed just about what I needed to start with.
The day my Dutch oven arrived, I was so excited and eager to get cooking but I had to “season” my Dutch oven first. Therefore, a day later, I was able to start cooking and it could only be a Mixed Berry Crisp for me. Of course, the day had to be a miserable one to initiate my new Dutch oven; cold, misty, windy as it was, I started cooking!
I had just recently built a new fire pit in the backyard and the plan was to cook in the fire pit just as on the show I had watched. Plans change, weather was bad, so I fired up some charcoal to start my dessert. Turns out I was going to do this little adventure alone. The family event turned out to be a “me” only event, well it was a bit cold and misty out after all.
Guys are notorious for just standing around watching this cook, that’s way we love to barbecue, looks difficult and you have to stand around and watch. Well, now you can get a visual of me “watching” my Dutch oven cook in the misty weather outside. Overlooking our backyard is this big bay window; gives you a great view of the yard from inside the house. As I am cooking, I happened to look up from my strenuous task and there was the whole family watching me and laughing at me as I stood in the misty weather “cooking”.
Undaunted, I continued with cooking my Mixed Berry Crisp until the first “whiffs” of cinnamon started to float out of the Dutch oven and I can say without hesitation, I was hooked on Dutch oven cooking from that second forward.
I have learned a ton of stuff over the years about cooking outdoors, met many new friends and have found a wealth of information in many locations. The most important lesson I have learned during all of this, is to share what you love, often and willingly. Dutch oven cooking is easier that you think and I would like to get you started with your new adventure!
Types of Dutch ovens
There are, basically, three types of Dutch oven available. A basic “kitchen” Dutch oven, a “Camp” Dutch oven and “Pack” Dutch oven in their general terms.
A “Kitchen” Dutch oven is the most common Dutch oven found. Characteristics are a rounded dome lid, porcelain coated (some) and are also available in oval shapes. All are cast iron and designed for in house cooking but do not hesitate to place one on your grill outside. They work perfectly!
A “Camp” Dutch oven is the most familiar one, recognized by its three legs and rim around the lid. Made of Cast iron and is the one I will be discussing in these articles.
A “Pack” Dutch oven, used for rafting and horse packing trips is made of aluminum, they are very lightweight and easy to transport.
Dutch oven sizes can vary from a 5” model to a 25” behemoth that can weigh in over a hundred pounds when filled with food. Here are the sizes available: 5”, 8”, 10”, 12” – Standard, 12” – Deep, 14” – Standard, 14” – Deep, 16” – Standard, 16” – Deep, 25” and more for custom Dutch ovens. Note that “Camp” Dutch oven, are measured by diameter as opposed to “Kitchen” Dutch ovens that measure in quarts. “Camp” Dutch ovens also have quart equivalents but commonly referred to by diameter size only.
The difference between “Standard” and “Deep” Dutch ovens is the quart capacity. The “Deep” Dutch ovens hold about 1 to 2 quarts more than the “Standard” size. They are great for holding stews and larger portions of meats that need more height clearance.
Choosing the correct size Dutch oven for you.
The following chart should give you some idea of the size oven that you should buy. (http://www.nwdos.org)
My recommendation is to choose a 10” or a 12” Dutch oven; no need to get a deep version yet. You will be seriously surprised how much food these produce. Stick with brand names such as Camp Chef and Lodge, their quality is the standard and your Dutch oven will last in your family for hundreds of years if your grandchildren do not sell it on Ebay first.
Next time we will discuss the types of accessories and tools you will need to get started. I laugh when I think of my expensive tools and accessories I used for my first cook on that first Dutch oven adventure; a pair of pliers and a garbage can lid …
See ya around the campfire!
Part One of a Dutch Oven Cooking Series by Gary House, creator of www.Cooking-Outdoors.com; an excellent source for all things about outdoor cooking, including Grill & Smoker reviews, recipes, and videos.Gary is also the host of a new DVD, Taking Your Dutch Oven To The Max, using the dutch oven to smoke, grill, and even make ice cream.
Listen to Gary on this episode of GardenFork Radio talk about how to season cast iron, how to use a dutch oven, and dutch oven recipes.
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Power Tool FAQ GF Radio
Power tool questions answered here, Tracy joins Eric to ask about the torque settings on her cordless drill, what are those numbers on the ring near the chuck? Tracy declines Eric’s offer to answer more of life’s deeper questions though.
Move on to grounded and not grounded power outlets in your house, can i replace the outlets that don’t have a ground plug with a grounded outlet? why or why not? Again, Eric provides the answers to this and a few more of tracy’s questions.
Have a question? ask us on GF Radio.
