GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

Artisan Bread No Knead Bread Recipe update

I was asked to bring bread to a pot luck, and luckily, i had just started a batch of the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day the night before. With this method, take 6 1/2 cups of flour, water, yeast, salt and put it in a large container. You let it rise for a few hours then put it in the fridge.

Artisan Bread Using the No Knead Bread baking method

I’ve fine tuned my Artisan Bread Recipe link here making it a hybrid of the No Knead Bread Recipe and the Artisan Bread Recipe. I lifted out a hunk of the dough from the fridge, formed it into a ball on parchment paper, and baked it in dutch oven.

I also make slashes across the top of the dough to make those cool lines . You can see how we make the slashes in our No Knead Bread Artisan Bread video here.

The bread comes out great! I look like I know what I am doing, and its real easy to do.

This loaf has a small amount of rye flour mixed into the dough, and it has a nice hint of rye in each slice.

How have you refined your Artisan Bread in 5 or No Knead Bread recipes? let us know below:

September 6, 2011
Squash Vine Borer Treatment #2 : GF Video

The Squash Vine Borer eating the squash, pumpkin, zucchini plants? Get rid of the squash borer with this method. If you have squash borer damage on your squash, pumpkins, zucchini plants, here’s how we treat our squash plants.

The moth of the squash vine borer lays it eggs next to the young squash plants, and the larvae then enter the plant by chewing a hole. If you see what looks like orange sawdust and a hole in your plant, you have borers. Not good, but if you are careful and use our borer removal method, you can still grow some great squash!

The moth that lays the vine borer eggs is a weird looking one, it looks like a cross between a moth and a ninja warrior. It has red and gray markings, here are some photos of the moth.

There are other squash vine borer treatments, methods, ways of prevention, we cover a few of them here:

Squash Vine Borer Prevention and Treatment method #1

Squash Vine Borer Treatment #3 using Bt

Don’t Give Up!

Despite these squash vines looking dead, you can still get some good squash out of them, so go ahead and try. It also helps to reduce the population of squash moths. From what I’ve read, Butternut Squash are less susceptible to the borer, and summer squash like zucchini are more susceptible. I remember as a kid seeing our zucchini die every year and the presence of that orange sawdust stuff.

Check out our Squash Recipes Here

How do you control squash vine borers? Any successful treatment you’ve used? Please let us know below:

September 2, 2011
Sheetrock Plaster Walls Pros & Cons

I’m betting if you are reading this post, you may be searching for information on how to sheetrock or drywall plaster walls. So, I thought I’d post some pictures to give you all a visual how-to on sheetrocking walls and talk about the pros and cons of this kind of wall repair. Here are some photos of a drywall – sheetrock job we recently did on plaster walls that were in really bad shape.

I get hired to sheetrock plaster walls when the client doesn’t want to repair and skim coat the existing plaster walls. To skim coat plaster walls is labor intensive, and to install drywall is faster and cleaner.

Plaster walls in bad shape, the client had removed the trim.

As you can see, the plaster walls were in poor shape, and some of the moldings were missing. We were fortunate in that the room was just slightly higher than 8 feet, so we could blend the edge of the drywall into the crown moulding. One of the issues with applying drywall over a plaster wall is how the drywall butts up to the existing mouldings, it doesn’t always work out very well.

We build out with scrap wood and drywall any holes in the walls

The drawback to sheetrocking plaster walls is that when the job is done, the walls look very rectilinear, they are very square and straight. To me, this doesn’t look right in a 100+ year old brooklyn brownstone or row house. But we do what the client wants, they are writing the check.

The sheetrock – drywall attached to the plaster wall

Plaster walls have an organic feel to them, they have imperfections, they are not straight and square, they undulate. When you skim coat a wall, you preserve that organic feel. When we’re done skim coating, it looks like a plaster wall in an old house; when you sheetrock a wall, it looks like a new condo.

Lucky for us, the walls of this room were a bit more than 8'

NOTE: the client had removed the wood trim and loose plaster, thinking they would do this job themselves. Its very likely they encountered lead paint when doing this. Check with your local codes on dealing with lead paint. Lead Paint is very unhealthy to breathe or eat.

Drywall affixed to the plaster wall, joint compound being applied to seams

sheetrock over damaged plaster walls

What do you all think? Do you have plaster walls in your home? have you ever repaired plaster walls? Let us know below.

September 2, 2011
The Best Banh Mi Vietnamese Sandwich in NY

Recently we were working on a paint job in Sunset Park Brooklyn, and we realized that Brooklyn’s Chinatown was just a few avenues away. Tony, ( who works with me in addition to writing recipes for GardenFork ) and I had previously visited Thanh Da II ( 5624 8th Avenue, Brooklyn NY ) in Brooklyn’s Chinatown after reading about this Banh Mi sandwich place in the NY Times.

Eric's Favorite Banh Mi Sandwich

There are now 4 Banh Mih sandwich places in our neighborhood in Brooklyn, the Ban Mih sandwich craze has reached the point where it was focus of a story on the NPR show This American Life.

According to Wikipedia:

Bánh mì or bánh mỳ (English pronunciation: /ˈbʌnmiː/, Vietnamese: [ɓǎːɲ mî]), literally biscuit or cake (Bánh) and flour or wheat (mì), is a Vietnamese baguette made with both wheat and rice flour, but more popularly known as a type of sandwich traditionally made with this type of baguette.[1] There are many global and regional variations of the sandwich, but the most common version features thinly sliced pickled carrots and daikon (known as đồ chua), cucumbers, cilantro, chili peppers, pâté, mayonnaise and various meat fillings or tofu. Popular bánh mì fillings include roasted or grilled pork, steamed or roasted pork belly, Vietnamese sausage, chicken, head cheese and ham.

The Banh Mi sandwich is a mash up of eastern and western cultures. The French brought their baguette sandwiches of vegetables to Vietnam, and the Vietnamese made it their own.

Thanh Da Banh Mih shop

We’ve tried a few of the place in our neighborhood, but the Banh Mi sandwiches at Than Da II win. They are really good. Especially the #4, a BBQ Pork Banh Mi sandwich that I order every time I go to Thanh Da.

dried mushrooms in brooklyn's chinatown

An added bonus to going to Thanh Da is getting to check out the asian grocery stores in Brooklyn’s Chinatown. I wish I had a tour guide when I walk the sidewalks and try to figure out what the merchants are selling. Some of the stores write out the items in English, but most don’t. Lots of mushrooms and dried items and tons of fresh fish.

Tony checks out the produce

what are these?

So if you are coming to New York, and want to get off the tourist track, come to Brooklyn’s Chinatown, and then walk over to Sunset Park for real mexican food.

September 1, 2011
Adirondack Guide Boat handmade from wooden boat plans

Last winter one of my friends showed me an Adirondack Guide Boat he was building in his basement. I just nodded, having seen many half finished ‘basement projects’ in friend’s basements, wooden boat plans being one of them.
Well this spring he finished his boat and it is looks just amazing.

homemade adirondack guide boat made from wooden boat plans

According to Wikipedia, the Adirondack guide boat is just that , it’s a boat that was used in the Adirondacks by professional guides who had paying passengers, usually from New York City, who wanted to go hunting or fishing and they traveled up to the Adirondack region of upstate New York to do so.

The Adirondack Guide Boat looks a bit like a canoe but they’re have oars and what’s really cool is that if you are rowing the boat, and then let the oars rest in the water the boat won’t change direction.

underside and keel of homemade wooden boat

My friend built a classic Adirondack guide boat, these days according to Wikipedia, today they are made of Kevlar and fiberglass, but he was a purist and used all wood.

(more…)

August 31, 2011
Hurricane Irene & Plywood Boats : GardenFork Radio

Mike and Eric talk about hurricane Irene, being a weather geek, the Allison House Weather Station that GardenFork uses, and Eric’s new plywood boat video

WMR968 Weather Station is available from AmbientWeather.com

August 29, 2011
Plywood boat, How to build one : GF DIY Video

Learn how to build a Plywood Boat. You can make a great boat out of one sheet of plywood. Watch our video here and see how we build a boat.

There are links at the end of this post for more of our boat videos and DIY projects ↓. You can make this plywood boat out of one sheet of plywood. If you use one sheet, plus a piece of scrap plywood that is 12″ x 24″ you can build a longer boat. We used 3/8 plywood for this one, next time we will use thinner plywood and fiberglass. I’ve been reading up on making a plywood canoe.

If you want to find out when we post new DIY videos, get our email newsletter here.

We used outdoor latex paint to coat the boat, and paintable high quality caulk to seal the joints. We added strength to the boat by attaching the boat pieces with 1×2 wood lath. If you can find some square molding that would be even better. Waterproof wood glue holds it together with the screws. The glue and caulk need to dry overnight before painting. Attaching a keel to the boat – I used a 2×4 – is key to stability. It’s not the most elegant boat, and the keel helps when paddling, otherwise it is hard to control. Several people have asked about mounting a trolling motor on the back of this. I think you can, but I’d suggest building a more robust boat for a trolling motor. This is a simple plywood boat, not a bass boat.

Watch what happens to our first Fiberglass Plywood Boat here. You can listen to Deek of RelaxShacks.com and Eric talk about how to build a plywood boat and tiny houses on this episode of GardenFork Radio I got the idea for this boat plan after watching a video by Deek Dericksen on the Make Magazine site. Here is a boat some students in England made after seeing ours.

You can find more plywood boat plans here.

August 23, 2011
Puffballs & Mushroom Identification

How to identify mushrooms. I get a lot of requests for more information mushroom identification, so i’ve started with this post to show GardenFork readers different mushrooms I run across in the woods and in the city.
The Giant Puffball can be a common site in urban areas. You might see these large white balls that look like they are from another planet appearing on your lawn, or in a park or meadow. Puffballs like this are common on the East Coast, I’ve also seen them in the Midwest.
The Puffball Mushroom in the photo here is one I found in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York. It was growing on the edge of a meadow near some trees.

Puffballs such as this are generally edible, though double check with several references and experts before getting out your knife and fork. I have found them to taste underwhelming, kinda like tofu. So maybe you can use them in a stir fry or saute with other vegetables, or in a soup.

Homesteaders, Urban Homesteaders, Foragers: Let me know how you cook puffballs.

Giant Puffball Mushroom part of the GardenFork Mushroom Identification series

August 22, 2011
Sneak Preview of this week’s DIY show :

Does it float? You’ll have to watch this week’s show…

August 21, 2011
Dutch Oven Banana Bread Recipe – Campfire Cooking – GF Video
Dutch oven banana bread recipe baked in a campfire or using charcoal, nice right?. Either way it tastes like the instant comfort food that it is. Watch the video and then read the recipe below.

Head up: I now have 4 dutch ovens, and all are well seasoned at this point. You can see our how to season cast iron video here. But I’ve never used a dutch oven for what they were probably originally designed for, cooking over a campfire. So today we use the cast iron dutch oven for what it is for, cooking outdoors. Watch and learn how to bake with fire.

How to make the dutch oven banana bread recipe

Whether for campfire cooking or backyard cooking, the dutch oven comes thru as a great pot for baking. Today we are going to learn how to use the dutch oven you have to bake or cook food outdoors, using charcoal or firewood. There are a couple of tricks here we learned from Gary of Cooking-Outdoors.com, like how to stack coals on the lid of a dutch oven, and how to use a dutch oven to bake breads and cakes.

Update: Reading some of the great comments, I’ve learned that when fully fired up, each charcoal briquette puts out about 40-50F of heat. I will use this info as I experiment more with dutch oven cooking with charcoal and campfires. What fun.

If you don’t already have them here are links to buy a cast iron dutch oven, a charcoal chimney, and heat resistant oven mitts.

Some takeaways from this video and recipe, which was really fun to do.
- Its not perfect. Is baking outdoors ever perfect
- Use good pot holders and silicon oven gloves.
- Charcoal is hot!
- You will love baking outdoors.
[tasty-recipe id=”13323″]

Check out our Toad In The Hole Recipe, also made outdoors in a dutch oven.
August 19, 2011
How to remove wallpaper : GardenFork Radio

Mike and Eric talk about how to remove wallpaper and skim coat walls, then move on to urban foraging and the recent NY Times article about harvesting plants from city parks, then we segue into how to replace a car fender, and the caveats that go with working on a damaged car.

Temporary email addresses allow to get into sites that require an email address confirmation, but you’d rather not give the site your regular email address.

Sous vide cooking with a slow cooker, and how to control the temperature of a slow cooker for sous vide cooking comes next, with eric discussing his newest research. Here is the link to the Makezine.com page about sous vide controllers.

we finish up talking about eric’s newest thing, plywood boats. More to come on that one.

photo by KevinRosseel

August 7, 2011
Bait Hives, Bee Swarms and Swarm Traps, Beekeeping 101 : GardenFork.TV

I built some honey bee swarm traps, or bait hives, to try to capture any bee swarms that came out of the beehives in our beeyard. Swarm Traps, or Bait Hives are basically boxes you place around near your bees, offering them as convenient homes for new bee swarms. The bait hives – swarm traps I show you how to build here are made from old bee frames and boxes. When my neighbor called me to say there were bees flying around one of our Swarm Traps, I left work and drove over, excited to video our first swarm! And happy too that we had not lost swarm to the woods, instead we could start a new hive with it, or recombine it with the hive from where it left later in the fall. Here is the video we made for our Beekeeping 101 Beginning Beekeeping

August 2, 2011
First Frames full of honey from new beehives

we did a beehive inspection last week and found the new honeybees to be in good shape. they have started to fill up their new frames with honey. this honey will stay in the hive to feed the honeybees through the winter.

August 2, 2011
How to keep honeybees basic questions : GardenFork Radio

Want to know the basics of how to raise honeybees? what kind of beekeeping equipment you need to buy? what kind of beekeeping veil to buy? where is the best place to put beehives? Listen to GardenFork Radio for a Beekeeping 101 , the basics of raising honeybees.

The idea for this honeybee beekeeping show started when my friend & GF viewer Matt wanted to ask me some questions about starting beekeeping. I suggested we make it into a GardenFork Radio show, as I imagine there are a bunch of people out there with questions about the basic setup needed to start raising bees. We answer questions about the following

Getting Started in Beekeeping
Pre-assembled hive boxes – supers or ones you assemble?
Beekeeper suit – veil features? hats and hood-types
How many boxes do I need for a hive?
Plastic frames or beeswax frames for brood and honey?
how many hive boxes do i need?
Placement of beehives
Better types of equipment or things you’ve learned?
Pests and problems
Beehive Problems with ants? Mice? Moths?
How often should you do the powdered sugar treatment for varroa mites?
Opening the hive
– How often?
– Better time of day?
– Tips?
Clothing
Beekeeping gloves Blue Nitrile gloves you wear – sting-proof?
How many supers – hive bodies do I need to leave for the bees in winter
How to you remove honey from the honeycomb frames?
What color do I paint my beehives supers boxes?

We are going to do a follow up to this first Beekeeping 101 radio show next week. If you have some beekeeping questions, please let us know below or call our GardenFork Radio Voicemail line 860-740-6938 !

July 31, 2011
The best spice rub for pork shoulder BBQ GardenFork Radio

We are on the road today in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY visiting with Daniel Delaney. Daniel and I talk about if someone can turn on the webcam on your laptop, and relates a story about an artist who did something similar at a computer store, and was then visited by law enforcement

Eric likes Daniel’s great Bolognese sauce that he did for his What’s This Food show, and we talk about how to can tomato sauces with a pressure cooker, and canning foods from the farmers market. The Karen Solomon book we talk about is Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It And Other Cooking Projects.

Daniel relates about cooking crawfish and his trip to New Orleans, and how water chestnut flour in a cake is not a great thing.

Eric tells how to propagate rhubarb, how to grow it, how to transplant it, and whether you can grow it from seed. Then we get into how lobster rolls are regional dishes , how they should be made. Mayonnaise or butter? or a mix?

Eric was inspired to start salt water fishing by Ben Sargent founder of Brooklyn Urban Anglers Association.

Daniel talks about the best spice rub to use on a pork shoulder that you are going to smoke. And how to smoke BBQ the quickest way possible using aluminum foil.

Daniel talks about 110 stories, a kickstarter campaign he has helped promote

and viewer mail about Moose, the black labrador!

July 27, 2011
Water your honeybees

We just shot another of our Beginning Beekeeping aka Beekeeping 101 videos and I wanted to show you how we water the bees. One of our two beeyards is near a vernal pond, and a stream not far away, but I’m all about making it easy for the bees, so I put out some water buckets for them. Bees don’t swim, so put some wood in the bucket for the honeybees to stand on while taking up the water

watering bucket for honeybees

i've placed the water outside the bearproofing electric fence

July 26, 2011
Connect A Generator To Your House : GardenFork Radio

Emergency Preparedness, installing a generator in your home, hooking up generator transfer panels, and how to safely hook up your generator to your house is the subject of GardenFork Radio. We want to thank Barry for his viewer mail that started us off on our Emergency Preparedness show today. more cool stuff on www.GardenFork.TV

ph0to by roganjosh

July 21, 2011
How to Deer Proof Your Yard : GardenFork Radio

If you want to keep deer from eating your plants, plant plants that the deer don’t eat. Ruth Rogers Clausen, author of 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants, joins us to talk about how to keep deer out of your yard by choosing plants that are deer resistant or deer proof. Did you know that acorns attract deer? That fact is just one of the ‘aha’ moments I had when reading about how to deal with the deer problem in the garden and yard. The book is full of well done photographs and in addition to the 50 Deer Resistant Plants that are the main theme of the book, Ms Clausen lists additional companion plants to fill out your deer proof yard and garden.

Win a copy of 50 Deer Resistant Plants! Here is how to participate in the giveaway of this great book on creating a Deer Proof Garden

First: Add your name to the drawing by filling out the form below
[form form-1]

Second: Like the GardenFork Page on Facebook, Facebook.com/GardenFork or follow us on Twitter Twitter.com/GardenforkTV , If you are not liking or following GF already > click on the FB Like icon or Twitter to the right >

If you are not on Facebook or Twitter but want to be part of the drawing, please note that in the above submission form

July 18, 2011