GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

Pizza Oven Plans & Photos from Steven of Tiny House Listings

Here is a different take on the portable backyard pizza oven by Steven of TinyHouseListings.com . Steven sent me these photos of the brick pizza oven he built. Here’s Steve’s note to us:

I love your website and loved the post on your pizza oven. After I saw it I posted a wanted ad on Craigslist for clay fire bricks and the next day went to pick up 100 of them from a fellow for free.

I played around with the bricks in my back yard and came up with a way to setup an oven with no mortar, no rails, no nothing except stacked bricks. My wife and I cooked 4 pizzas last night and they turned out nicely.

Since it was my first time setting up something like this it was a little crooked (you can tell especially in the pic from behind) but I plan to take it down and restack it. One other recommendation I would make should you decide to take this approach is to make the oven about two or three layers of bricks deeper to allow more heated air to circulate over the pizza. My oven is only 4 layers deep since I ran out of bricks! Once I get a couple more I’ll make it deeper.

When building it be sure to build all of the layers of the wall together. In other words, lay all bricks down for each row on the entire side of the wall, then move up to the next layer so they bricks can rest on each other for support.

I think its brilliant that Steven posted a ‘wanted’ ad on craigslist looking for bricks, I had not thought of doing that, I kept looking in craigslist for people offering bricks. Smart.

Dry Fit Pizza Oven by Steven

rear view of pizza oven

Fire = Good

Other Pizza Oven Plans and Photos Posts on GardenFork:

Brick Pizza Oven Video and Plans GF TV video

Brick Oven Plans and Photos from a GardenFork Fan

Pizza Oven Photos from John

Backyard Brick Oven Discussion! GF Radio

Homemade Pizza Recipe : Christmas Eve

How to make a bread peel or pizza peel : Gardenfork.tv

February 8, 2012
Aquaponics and Hydryponics How-to GF Radio

‘Being pregnant, that will knock you out’ is how Eric describes pregnancy. Hamburgers with eggs and peanut butter is on Mike’s to do list at his favorite pancake place. Mike is enjoying his Zombie Bait shirt.

Rick updates us on his DIY aquaculture and hyrdroponics project. Aquaculture is like organic gardening in a closed system using fish and the waste water from the fish feeding the plants, and the filtered water is then returned back to the fish tank. If you already have a goldfish pond, you are that much closer to having an aquaculutre system. What kind of fish to use, what is the difference between hyrdoponics and aquaculture, and how you can build an inexpensive hydroponics system using 5 gallon buckets and PVC pipe. Mike’s friend Eric has a site about aquaponics here.

Rick made a video about basic Dutch Bucket hydroponics system here

Here is a simple hydroponic setup you can buy
The advantage of the dutch bucket system is that the PVC pipe runs underneath the bucket to allow easy drainage.

Eric and Rick both cite Eliot Coleman’s Book Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long

Rick talks about the GardenFork Radio interview with Deek Diedricksen, author of Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts . Rick talks bout several of the projects, Deek is a brilliant designer.

Following up on the Simple Backyard Pizza Oven, viewers have sent in photos of their Brick Pizza Ovens, and one viewer has made Simple Bread Oven, see the photos here.

With viewer mail come discussion the video of How to cook a great steak, and propane torches.

More on winter beekeeping, Eric and Rick discuss the warm weather and winter feeding of honeybees.

February 5, 2012
Minimal Living & Monster Minivans GF Radio

Sarah joins Eric and Mike to talk about minimal living and how families can reduce their clutter. Sarah addresses how families can reduce their amount of stuff and be minimalist too. Eric thanks Make Magazine for putting the new pizza oven video on their site and Mike talks about the joy of driving through flat land.

January 31, 2012
Home Made Pizza Oven Photos from John

After watching our brick oven pizza video, John in Arizona sent us these photos of his DIY brick oven. Much like our brick oven design, it uses brick and angle iron. I forgot to ask John where he got his angle iron from. I like that the brick oven fits nicely right next to his propane grill, right off the patio, all set for cooking.

“My wife and I love your show. We put this together and wanted you and your wife to see it”

Cool! This is the second set of pictures I’ve got from a viewer. A big thank you to John for sending these. love it. See the link at the bottom of this post for links to other pizza and bread oven photos.

John tried out his oven with a pizza stone, and I’ve talked with a few people who have tried this method, its much better to just slide the pizza right onto the hot bricks. The bricks are about 700F, so its pretty sterile. And bricks are made out of clay, which is what pottery is made out of, so i’m thinking its pretty safe to do.

More Pizza Oven Plan Photos Here
Love that roaring fire in the photo there, and the pizzas have a smokey hint to them when using wood. Do you have a backyard oven? send us photos or a link to your site, thanks!

January 27, 2012
Build a Tiny House with Deek Diedricksen GF Radio

Tiny House Designer Deek Diedricksen joins Sarah and Eric to talk about how to build a tiny house of your own, how to use recycled materials in your tiny house, and how he published his book of Tiny House Designs,Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts
Deek and Eric talk about green building techniques, aka ‘Curbside Culling’ and how you can build a house with stuff your neighbors throw out. Eric’s Plywood Boat video is based on Deek’s design for a plywood boat he did for Make Magazine and on today’s show a discussion of how to build a boat from one sheet of plywood with zero skills, and how one can modify the plywood boat that we built on GardenFork.
Deek will be teaching at several Tumbleweed Tiny House Workshops in Miami and perhaps Boston.
Treehouse plans and how to attach a treehouse to a tree comes up next, Deek tells us a few different ways to secure a treehouse up in a tree, using recycled materials, of course. Plans for a tree house workshop are in a the works, and a tiny house houseboat is in the nascent stages.
Deek’s advice for how high to build a treehouse is not build it too high in the tree, and hardwood trees are better to secure tree houses to. Overbuild your tree house while keeping the weigh to a minimum is the mantra.
We name drop with Deek, talking about Andrew Odom, tiny house building and blogger, who was on this GF Radio episode, you can check out Andrew’s site here, and Eric talked about Gennaro Brooks-Church, green building contractor who talked about green building techniques in this episode of GardenFork.TV
The dilemma of curbside culling is next, what to do with all the recycled materials one picks up? Deek says to go ahead and build stuff with them.
We do a book review of Deek’s book here, take a look at some of the drawings inside Deek’s Tiny House book.

January 26, 2012
Humble Homes; Tiny House Plans Book by Derek Diedricksen

Looking for tiny house plans? Here they are. The Tiny House or Small House movement has a number of well known thought leaders, Derek Diedricksen leads by building Tiny Houses. Derek is the author of a new book of tiny house plans and ideas, Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts
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The best way to describe Deek’s book is a mash up of Tiny House Architecture meets Comic Zine.

Reviews of the book describe it in a similar way, Mad Magazine meets This Old House meets Wayne’s World.

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And the book is very GardenFork; unpretentious and not afraid to be who he is, Deek fits right in in the GardenFork world. Taking found materials, stuff you find in your neighbor’s garbage, and building Tiny Houses with fun names. “TV Viewing Fort Cube” and “The Yeehaw Spa” are just two of the many small house designs in the book.

Deek’s book is an idea starter, not a book of finished tiny house plans, its a book to start you on 100 ideas of how to build a tiny house that fits your world. Each page is jammed with what comes out of his head – which is similar to how my head works, i just can’t draw or drink as much caffeine.

Derek “Deek” Diedricksen in one of his tiny houses

You will read each page more than once, you will forget what page your were on and it wont matter, because whatever page you land on is filled with more cool ideas. If this book were designed like most how-to books, it would be 400 pages.

This book will take you on many tangents and you will land somewhere unplanned, but that’s a good thing, I think.

Deek was on GardenFork Radio talking about how to build a tiny house and other fun tangents, you can listen to the show here. Deek’s website is RelaxShacks.com

January 26, 2012
How to Cook Steak Perfect : GF video

Learn how to cook the perfect steak in this steak cooking video we made. Simple steak recipe that uses a frozen steak, so you don’t have to wait to defrost it. Neat. If you are looking for the answer to how to cook the perfect steak, watch this GardenFork video, you will be amazed at this easy steak recipe.

This steak recipe video was inspired by Melissa Clark of the NY Times and Nathan Myhrvold, author of the 5 volume Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. They made a video on the NY Times site showing this method, and I wanted to share it with you all and put the GardenFork spin on how to cook steak.
For this steak cooking method, I suggest a propane torch from the hardware store, don’t buy one of those little butane torches at the cooking supply store, buy the real thing. Its also great for making Creme Brule, see our how to make Creme Brule video here.

We have also made a video about cooking steak sous vide, which is also a great way to cook steak and is part of the modernist cuisine movement. Our version of sous vide cooking uses a beer cooler, low tech but it works, much like a propane tech is low tech but it works.
I have a copy of the Modernist Cuisine At Home and really like it. If you want the full set, you can get that below as well.
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Tell us your steak recipes, hacks and hints below, love to hear from you all, eric.

January 25, 2012
Backyard Brick Oven Discussion! GF Radio

We talk about the Simple Backyard Brick Oven Plans and Video. The pizza oven construction is discussed, and how to source angle iron using freecycle techniques. Placement of the wood fire within the Brick Oven and the difference between our simple brick oven and those pizza ovens in a restaurant fill out the conversation. Its the perfect brick oven for a pizza party. Mike talks about the ritual of building the oven is akin to BBQ, the ritual of doing it. Having your friends help build the pizza oven when they come over to eat would be fun. How to cut Durock, a cement backer board used in the Brick Pizza Oven is best scored with a utility knife.

What kind of dough recipe to use in the pizza oven comes up. Eric used this pizza dough recipe and found it to be good.

Mike asks if people remember a mimeograph machine, and dates himself immediately, and talks about fishing in winter.

Monica joins us to talk about what Eric should make with what he has in his fridge, the consensus seems to be Mexican Casserole. We also talk about Monica’s trip to Los Angeles.

The 7 bone roast mystifies Eric, and Monica suggests visiting your local butcher who knows about meat. Stew meat, what kind to use, and how Monica and Mike make it is discussed, use what you got seems to be the theme here. Mike has a great suggestion to save food from catering platters, put them in the freezer and use them to make stews.

GardenFork Radio is now available on Stitcher Radio

January 22, 2012
Brick Oven Plans and Photos From a GardenFork Fan

After watching our Simple Brick Oven Plan Video, Roger sent us these photos of his Brick Oven Construction. He has modified the Brick Pizza Oven Plan we used to be able to hold more heat and make a Backyard Brick Bread Oven.

Enjoyed your brick oven video. We found the same plan after being inspired by our daughter who had spent a week with Bread and Puppet on her campus in Iowa (they built an oven and baked bread for the audience after their performance).
Attached are some photos. We added the wooden door for bread baking. We soak it prior to baking so that it steams the oven and gives the bread a nice spring as it bakes. We purchased a [ Fluke ] infrared thermometer to ensure the proper temp for the baking. Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer

A typical baking progression includes: flatbreads, pizza, bread, tart. It’s great fun. Thanks for sharing your video, Roger

I like how Roger has added more mass to the Wood Fired Brick Oven to allow it to bake bread, yet still retaining the break down portable nature of the oven, keeping the oven a simple dry fit brick wood oven, easy to build and then take down.

I need to buy one of those Infrared Thermometer gizmos

Bread and Pizza Oven using dry fit brick

A wood door was built and it is soaked in water to give steam in the oven when baking bread

Bread from a simple brick oven

Pizza from the backyard brick oven

a tart for dessert!

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January 22, 2012
Beekeeping for Beginners FAQ Part 2 : GF Radio

Matt joins Eric to answer Beekeeping for Beginners questions on this show. What equipment to buy, how to buy honeybees, where to put beehives in your yard, what kind of beekeeping suit to buy all answered here.

what kind of beekeeping suit and beekeeping veil is good?

what kind of frames should i use in the beehive, are plastic frames better than wood frames?

wax foundation versus plastic foundation should i use plastic or wax foundation on the frames of the beehive? eric talks about the benefits of wax foundation and plastic foundation and frames

Eric suggests 2 beekeeping for beginners books,

Buy On IndieBound Here
Click Here to buy on Amazon

Click Here to Buy On Indiebound
Click Here To Buy On Amazon

Beekeeping for Dummies and the Backyard Beekeeper

do you paint the outside of the beehive? yes, we use latex paint.

should i buy 8 frame supers or 10 frame supers? matt and eric talk about the benefits of 8 frame boxes and 10 frame boxes

what kind of beekeeping tools should i buy? eric suggests bringing duct tape, scissors, entrance reducer, smoker, woodchips, matches, 2 or 3 hive tools, a frame grabbing tool, needle nose pliers and more.

what kind of hive stand should my beehive rest on? cinder block, wood, metal stands are talked about, eric suggests having a work table next to your hives.

we talk about benefits of top bar hives vs. langstroth hives, and the drawbacks of top bar hives and langstroth beehives.

should you buy a bee package or a honeybee nuc? eric talks about the advantages of honeybee packages , the pros and cons of bee packages, and the benefits of being a nuc or nucleus hive to start a beehive.

eric advocates buying local honeybees and queens, either packages or nucs, the closer you can buy your bees the better.

www.whiteoakapiary.com in Brewster, NY and www.warmcolorsapiary.com in Greenfield, MA is where eric buys queens and honeybees.

should you feed honeybees in winter and how do i feed my bees over the winter? eric talks about how to feed bees in winter. you can watch our Beekeeping for Beginners video series here, and several videos are about feeding bees in winter.

Eric uses a hand immersion blender to mix this sugar feed solution, and adds this homemade essential oil recipe for bees to the sugar

The essential oil mixture is great for spraying the bees to combat nosema and bee diarrhea.

winterizing beehives is discussed, here is eric’s beehive insulated inner cover video, Eric feeds sugar cakes to the bees in winter, not fondant or sugar syrup. Should you close or open a screened bottom board? Matt and Eric discuss

Mudsongs.org is a favorite beekeeping blog of eric’s. Phillip documents his beekeeping in Newfoundland Canada.

where to site your hives in your yard, where should you put the hives, what is the best location for beehives? eric has learned that full sun is best, he talks more about it during this radio episode.

should I take a beekeeping class? eric says yes.

and join your local beekeeping group. search on the web for your state’s beekeeping association, and that site should list local beekeeping groups.

Megan of BrooklynHomesteader.com offers online beekeeping classes, and in-person classes as well.

January 16, 2012
Homemade Brick Pizza Oven Video

Build this homemade brick pizza oven in your backyard with recycled used clay bricks and a recycled metal mattress frame. And the pizza oven is portable! You can assemble this in 20 minutes, make homemade pizzas, then take it apart and store it. Most backyard pizza ovens are big and permanent, this homemade brick oven is great because its easy to break down again until your next pizza baking party.Here are the pizza oven plans shown in photos, our oven uses used clay brick and 24″ angle iron we cut from a old bed frame. You have to heat up the oven for an hour to get it up to temperature. The brick pizza oven has to be on sturdy sawhorses or cement blocks. We used cement tile board to insulate the plywood table from the heat of the brick oven. Stuart, author of the Bread Oven book, emailed us, cautioning that he felt the 2 layers of cement tile board was not enough insulation to keep the plywood from scorching, he suggests a base of cement, as shown on his blog here.

Clean the bricks that will be used for the floor of the oven, that’s where your pizza dough will be sitting. We didn’t have a thermometer, but I’m told the floor of the brick oven can reach 700F. We also found its good to keep some of the coals in the front part of the oven, so the heat is more even. We had to turn the pizza once during baking to have it cook evenly.

I have a few ideas for more modifications, which we will post later on. Keep children and animals away from this and all fires, this is for adults.

base of pizza oven

building walls of pizza oven

pizza oven roof using angle iron

Backyard Brick Pizza Oven

More Pizza Oven Plan Photos Here

Watch all of our pizza oven and pizza dough recipes here

Our backyard pizza oven is based on one in the book Bread , Earth, & Fire by Stuart Silverstein. Stuart’s book has a bunch of plans and info on building backyard ovens, go buy it here. it is available as an ebook or paperback. Read Stuart’s blog here.

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January 15, 2012
Avoid Potholes, Save Money GF Radio

Eric and Mike talk about car repair and how to save money by (safely) avoiding potholes, as hitting potholes can have an impact on bearings that is pricey to fix. Rick asks us to consider celebrating New Years on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) so you can have a party and still get to bed at a decent hour. The unseasonably warm weather brings up concerns about bears coming out of hibernations and affected jobs including its impact on the sugaring season (also known as sap season) for maple syrup and landscapers. Eric discusses how active the bees are due to the warm temperatures and how to feed your hives to get them through the winter. Discussion about this also took place on the Backwards Beekeepers of New York CIty Facebook page. Mike and Eric hear from a number of viewers writing or calling in on a variety of topics including: making virtual (such as in Evernote) versus pen and paper lists, shopping at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore in your area, the color a proper pickle should be, and beginner mushroom growing tips. Mike shares his favorite highlights from GardenFork’s Labrador Retriever New Years video show. Oh, and follow Mike on Twitter! @GFR_Mike

photo by click

January 11, 2012
Pizza Oven Sneak Preview

Probably the only people to see this post are the ones who read GF on an RSS feed or similar gizmo.

Here is a surveillance photo of the said portable wood fired brick pizza oven. Video will happen next week.

January 4, 2012
New Years, Growing mushrooms, Aquaponics on GF Radio

Eric and Mike start off their new years day show with Chris Brogan and his 3 words for 2012, Eric suggests not going to Times Square for New Years Eve, you probably wont like it, its very crowded.

Fireplace safety comes up next, Eric suggests everyone have glass doors or a wire screen over their wood burning fireplaces.

Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors have an effective life of 8-10 years, according to FEMA, and don’t cheap out when buying new ones, you get what you pay for. Its also important to follow the installation instructions you get with the detectors, smoke detector placement is very important.

Eric tells of his visit to a green home supplier that sells kitchen cabinets from deconstructed renovations. One of the projects will involve creating an opening between two rooms by cutting an opening a load bearing wall, which will be a future GardenFork video.

Sauerkraut fermentation times are discussed again, with more comments on Eric’s How to make sauerkraut video. Eric knows that yes, he did not let the cabbage ferment long enough.

Viewer mail takes up a lot of the show.

Eric talks about how to grow mushrooms and inoculate wood plugs with mushroom spore, and inoculating logs with mushroom plugs and spore. All about mushroom spawn.

Rick will be back on the show to talk about aquaponics and aquaculture , and Eric of chicago writes us about his tires being cupped.

Eric still plans on having breakfast with executive coach Rich Gee, and Radio Rick thinks it was the best interview we’ve done.

Eric talks about building his portable wood fired pizza oven, which will be a how-to pizza oven video for the show.

January 3, 2012
life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact GF Radio

The Human Potential in all of us, eric calls it, and we talk about it again today on GF Radio. Steve Jobs talking about how we are all capable of all sorts of stuff, from this YouTube video.

From Monica we learned about the website, The99percent.com, and talk about how to find your work sweet spot, by focusing on doing what you like with genuine interest and skills. Kinda like do what you love, the money will follow but with a dose of reality kicked in.

And from the same site, Mike and Eric talk about email etiquette, and how most emails can be negative and how to write emails that wont be taken the wrong way. Eric decides emoticons are ok to use, as emails can always be read the wrong way. Make way for more smiley faces from Eric now.

Kickstarter, and how to run your own kickstarter campaign is our next topic. Eric suggests a free PDF book, The Kickstarter’s Guide to Kickstarter, by Nelson de Witt, as a great place to start learning about running a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Planning is very important when deciding to have a Kickstarter campaign, so we have decided to wait a bit to start the GardenFork Kickstarter campaign. Stay tuned for news in February.

Mike’s Pinball Machine blog is http://shoppedmachine.blogspot.com/

Steve Job’s quote from PBS show:

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is.

And your life is just to live your life inside the world

Try not to bash into the walls too much

Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money

That’s a very limited life

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact

And that is that everything around you that you call life

Was made up by people who were no smarter than you

And you can change it, you can influence it,

You can build your own things that other people can use

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

photo by Mantasmagorical

December 24, 2011
Rich Gee, Executive Coach & Gardener GF Radio

Rich Gee, head of The Rich Gee Group – Executive and Business Coaching , joins Eric today to talk about what keeps us from doing stuff we want to do, but can’t seem to get going on. We also talk about eggnog and making plywood boats

Rich Gee, Executive Coach

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December 21, 2011
Christmas Sugar Cookie Recipe Video GF.TV

Sugar cookies are an easy christmas cookie recipe, even I can make these holiday cookies, maybe. Watch here and learn how to make sugar cookies for Christmas and the holidays.

Universal Sugar Cookie Recipe

This sugar cookie recipe is based on one Chris Kimball wrote about, saying its the universal recipe used by almost every baker.

1/2 cup white sugar

1 stick butter ( 1/2 cup ) slightly softened, but not mushy.

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

dash of vanilla

optionals:

chopped walnut, espresso powder, cocoa powder, almonds, etc.

Preheat oven to 375F

Put the stick of butter and the sugar in your food processor. You can also use an electric mixer, but I don’t have one right now, so the food processor works well for me.

Turn the food processor on to medium speed to mix the sugar and butter together, then add the 1 egg and vanilla, mix it in. The mixture should be lumpy, not super smooth.

Mix together all the dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, salt, – and then add these to the food processor butter mixture.

Run the food processor until the mixture starts to form into a ball.

Turn our the dough onto a floured board and divide the dough into two equal pieces.

Roll each piece of dough into a log shape about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Wrap these dough logs in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for one hour.

Using knife or pastry blade, slice off 1/4″ thick circles from the dough logs, place on cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Bake at 375F for about 8 minutes. you want the edges to be starting to brown, but not dark.

Cool on a wire rack and eat as soon as possible. They taste great when warm.

What is your sugar cookie recipe, your favorite addition to sugar cookies? Let us know below

December 21, 2011
Grow Mushrooms In Your Yard, Backyard Oyster Mushroom Spore Inoculation

Growing mushrooms in my yard, instead of having to go foraging for mushrooms, is a goal of mine. Mushroom growing is not rocket science, but for mushrooms to grow, the environment must be perfect for that particular kind of mushroom. On our hike yesterday, I came across a dead oak tree full of oyster mushrooms, but the mushrooms were way past their prime, they were falling apart.

I cut off about a third of the mushrooms and put them in a paper bag. Today, I went in the back yard-woods, and all while constantly tossing two tennis balls for the Labradors, I looked for a dead or dying deciduous tree.

Oyster Mushrooms from a dead oak tree

I have a number of mature birch trees in my yard, a few of which are dying, they have large woodpecker holes in them. I leave dead trees standing, to allow cavity nesting birds to have homes. Woodpeckers peck out nests in dead trees, then other birds use those nests after the woodpeckers have left.

So today I had the paper bag of oyster mushrooms with me and I tried my hand at inoculating a dead birch tree with mushroom spore. My method was not very exacting, I didn’t drill holes in the tree and put spore in the holes, I placed pieces of oyster mushroom in between the bark and the wood of the tree where the bark had split open.

Wedged the mushrooms between the bark and dead wood

What was really cool was inside the paper bag the oyster mushrooms has released a bunch of spores, so I took apart the paper bag and rubbed the spore on the wood of the trunk.

white powdery mushroom spore in the bag i had been keeping the mushrooms in

It will take a few years to see if our mushroom spore inoculation project is a success. If you are interested in learning more about mushroom identification, I have posted photos of mushrooms I have identified in our Mushroom Identification series here on the GardenFork.TV site.

Do you have some mushroom growing or mushroom spore inoculation suggestions? Please let us know below:

Charlie Pup waits for me to throw her tennis ball again.

December 18, 2011