GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

  • Bear Proofing Your Beeyard : Beginning Beekeeping Video

    Bear Proofing Your Beeyard : Beginning Beekeeping Video

    In this video on bear proofing your bee hive, we talk about ways to keep bears away from you beehives. The largest danger to our beehives are bears. They are very common here in NW CT and we don’t want them wrecking our beehives.

    We read an article on bear proofing one’s hives in Bee Culture link here, by Ross Conrad, author of Natural Beekeeping, and have used a few of the bear proofing methods he wrote about for our hives.

    We are in our sophmore year of beekeeping, and don’t purport to be experts on beekeeping yet, but we wanted to document our first years of beekeeping and share them with you all.

    We have used this and other electric fences to bear proof the beeyard with good results. Your results may vary. Be very careful when dealing with bears. If there is one in your yard, get in the house, and get your dogs in the house too.

    Full disclosure, Premier 1 supplies sent us the electric fence for free. I think its a good product.

    Beekeepers: what methods do you use to safeguard your hives? let us know below

  • Towers of Light at World Trade Center

    Towers of Light at World Trade Center

    a few people have asked me what the lights down at World Trade look like. In the evening you notice these beams of light shooting straight up. These lights are turned on every year near September 11.

  • Spaghetti Is Better The Next Day : GardenFork Radio

    Spaghetti Is Better The Next Day : GardenFork Radio

    How do you pronounce vinegarette?, car talk, the show and we talk cars, foraging for mushrooms, eric with his toolbelt is eye candy, twitter etiquette

    The NY Times article on open DNS,

    Fall beekeeping tips, How To Video: Preparing your Bees and Beehive for Winter

    Eric is trying out Premier 1 Supplies Electric Fence for Bears and Bearproofing. ( Premier 1 sent Eric a free fence )

    more on the Breaded Pork Tenderlion,

    If you are in town visiting, check out midtown lunch blog, to find great places to eat in midtown,

    more info on the backyard bread and pizza oven: urbanhomestead.org  clay oven, cheryl’s blog ,

    christine’s Thrifty And Green blog wyoming blog,

    The Handi Blog talks about using a food bag to pour cement into cement cracks

    laundrylist.org is the place for more clothesline info

  • Mushroom Hunting – Foraging for the Chicken Mushroom

    Mushroom Hunting – Foraging for the Chicken Mushroom

    One of my best friends drove over from NY state yesterday and arrived with a bag full of interesting mushrooms. He and his wife have become quite adept at finding Morels and Oyster mushrooms.

    He had found these near their house, down the road a mile or so, and stopped to pick a few.

    Chicken Mushrooms

    We brought them into the house and I pulled out my mushroom books. We found the mushroom, identified as the Chicken Mushroom ( Laetiporus sulphureus ), in my favorite book, The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms.

    But to make sure we knew what this was, we cross checked with our other mushroom books, and confirmed that the mushrooms were indeed Chicken Mushrooms.

    Always make sure you know exactly what you are doing with mushrooms found in the woods, if you’re not sure, don’t eat them, OK?

    Considered Choice Edible by the Audubon Guide, we first simmered them in salt water, as suggested online, and then sauted them with a little butter. They were quite good. Not amazing, but good enough that we will pick these again and add to a meal.

    What fun mushroom or wild food finds have you found lately? let us know below:

    a quick simmer in salt water was suggested
    Sauteed in Butter, yum.
  • Bring Duct Tape when working honeybees

    Bring Duct Tape when working honeybees

    I wear Carhartt work pants. Whether I am in the city or in the country, I’m wearing Carhartt’s black canvas work dungarees. ( I do own one tan pair )

    Yesterday, we worked the bees, our plan was to powder sugar the bees to treat for varroa mites, and add new grease patties for tracheal mites.

    Before we left the house, The Camera Operator looked at me and said, “Do you want to tape up the hole in your pant leg before we go?” I had torn a hole in my dungarees dropping some pine trees. ( I should really wear the double front Carhartts )

    carhartt dungarees
    The hole in my pants

    Me, being me, said no.

    So, in the middle of taking apart our largest hive – the hive that gets a little more agitated than our other calm hives – I felt something crawling up my thigh.

    Then I felt the pinch. All this occurring while I have a 60 lb deep brood box in my hands.

    the bee sting
    The Bee Sting

    I realized once again who is the smart one in our family. Lesson here, tape up any holes in your pants before going to the beeyard. Or better yet, wear pants that don’t have holes in them.

    duct tape works
    Duct Tape Works

    What knucklehead things have you done when working? Let me know below…

  • Black Bean Corn Salad Picnic Potluck Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    Black Bean Corn Salad Picnic Potluck Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    Here’s a recipe that’s perfect to make ahead and bring to a picnic or a potluck. Black Bean Corn Salad, super tasty, easy to make, and its made from ingredients you have at home.

    Do you have a variation or similar recipe? Please share it below:

    Black Bean Corn Salad Recip

    1 can Black Beans

    1 package frozen corn

    1 small red onion, chopped fine

    1 clove garlic, crushed

    1/2 cup olive oil

    3 tablespoon red wine vinegar ( or to taste )

    1 tablespoon brown mustard

    1 tablespoon honey

    1 teaspoon pimenton

    Mix together the corn and beans and onion.

    In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard and garlic and honey.

    Pour dressing over corn and beans mix, allow flavors to meld in the fridge for a bit before serving.

  • The Diplomacy of Your Neighbor’s Grass : GardenFork Radio

    The Diplomacy of Your Neighbor’s Grass : GardenFork Radio

    This week: felling trees, cleaning your chimney, clay ovens from Erica Wides of Why We Cook, hot things in your fridge burn out compressor, what octane gas should you use in your car, agricultural fabric in your vegetable garden, Chef Robert Newton of Seersucker, Mike asks what all this about Mums in the fall, eric burns his saute pan, inoculating birch logs with mushroom spore, higher grass in your lawn is better, plastic container swap meet, rain barrel discussion, Casserole Crazy Party dates, and viewer mail

  • Tree felling at the house

    Tree felling at the house

    We have 2 large pine trees right next to our house. Last winter, the top 8 feet of one of them missiled into the ground right between the house and the wood shed. So we decided to have Entire Tree Service, who remove trees in Litchfield County, Northwest CT, to come cut down the trees.

    Climbing up the tree
    cutting limbs
    These trees were too much for me to take on, so i called the experts
    see how close they are to the house?
    cutting the top off
    Removing the last limb from the 2nd tree
    a lot of gear hanging from their belts
    cutting the wedge
    Dropping the tree
    You can see the hinge that guides the tree here
    It was my job to haul off the logs with my neighbor's John Deere
  • Robert Newton of Seersucker Restaurant & Mike’s Pork Sandwich : GardenFork Radio

    Robert Newton of Seersucker Restaurant & Mike’s Pork Sandwich : GardenFork Radio

    GardenFork Radio goes on the road in this show. First we hear firsthand of Mike’s quest for the Pork Tenderlion Sandwich in Indiana. [ one of our favorite states ]

    THEN:

    This place made me want to kiss my deliciously perfect grits…and chicken and dumplings….and deviled eggs, and oh, if only I could make out with that pimento cheese. NY Mag review of Seersucker

    Eric got to meet up with Chef Robert Newton, who has just opened Seersucker, a new restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, NY . Chef Roberts serves updated Southern comfort foods; what will make this place well known are its Chicken and Dumplings. Eric visited Chef Newton early one afternoon to talk about what is it like to open a restaurant, and how we can make all sorts of great food with a pork shoulder.

    photo by CarolineJG

  • Jiffy Mix Cornbread Recipe Hack – GF Video

    Jiffy Mix Cornbread Recipe Hack – GF Video

    Super easy cornbread recipe that’s kinda cheating, hence the name, Jiffy Mix Cornbread Recipe Hack. Lets take a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix and throw in a can of creamed corn to create a not-original recipe for pretty a darn good Creamed Corn Corn Bread Recipe. I’ve heard about different Jiffy Corn Mix hacks, and I wanted to try out one I had heard of from many people. The Creamed Corn Recipe Hack.

    Full Recipe at the end of this post. Here are some of our other cornbread recipe videos:

    I have a few corn bread recipes, but this one works for me and many people have commented that it works for them as well. There’s something in that comfort food vein that is evoked with Jiffy Corn Bread Mix. Hope they never change the box, who knows what the uproar would be? The idea for this recipe hack comes from my friend Charlie Shaw, and it sat in the back of my head for several years until I had the lightbulb moment to put a can of creamed corn into a box of Jiffy Cornbread mix. And you see what happened here. Cornbread Splendor.

    Do you use Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix in your cornbread recipe? What do you add to mix it up? Let us know in the comments below:

    Jiffy Mix Cornbread Recipe Hack – GF Video
    Cuisine: American
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Ingredients
    • 2 boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
    • 2 eggs
    • 2/3 cup milk
    • 14oz can of creamed corn
    • 2 tablespoons butter
    Instructions
    1. Put a #8 – or 12″ cast iron pan in the oven at 375F for about 15 minutes
    2. Mix together the 2 boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix with the eggs, milk, creamed corn.
    3. Pull the cast iron pan out of the oven, drop in the butter and swirl it around, make sure it gets up on the walls of the cast iron pan.
    4. Pour the batter into the cast iron pan, and bake for 30 minutes.
    5. Check for doneness, the edges of the crust should be starting to brown.
    6. Let cool for a few minutes, run a spatula up under the pan to loosen the corn bread. Flip onto a plate

     

     

    Thanks for watching, eric.

  • Into the head of Eric; this is a trip I’ve been wanting to make : GardenFork Radio

    Into the head of Eric; this is a trip I’ve been wanting to make : GardenFork Radio

    The Most Eclectic GardenFork Radio Show Ever. Why is Eric talking about Lindsay Lohan? What Mike thinks of yoga, DJ music mixes, Vampire power affects coal miners, Liberal Curmedgeon, Mike fixes disc brakes, More chainsaw safety, Honey harvest, Eric takes a PR pitcher to task and more.

    The Bear Proof Electric fence for the beehives is supplied to GardenFork  from Premier1Supplies.com

    The Liberal Curmedgeon blog is here, his editorial in The NY Times is here

    the DJ music played is from DJs Anonymous

  • Henry and Charlie Are Both Girls : GardenFork Radio

    Henry and Charlie Are Both Girls : GardenFork Radio

    This week’s topics include:

    microchip your dogs,

    Making bread and butter pickles: learn how to make bread and butter pickles with our pickle recipe here

    the Roast Corn Recipe show got a lot of comments

    the labradors were smelling really ripe this week

    mike makes the kinpira gobo burger and reports back

    chainsaw safety comes close to home with a fatal accident in Eric’s town

    you can buy chainsaw chaps at your local power tool store or http://www.baileysonline.com/

    Bruce joins us to talk about smoking food and bird photography AND making steel cut oats in a slow cooker overnight AND the bacon explosion, you can watch our Bacon Explosion Recipe video here

    BBQ addicts is where we got our Bacon Explosion Recipe

    Eric give the honeybee report and a neighbor has a weak hive

    Geotagging your photos: you camera may be embedding location information in the photos you upload to the web. here is an article from the NY Times

    and we talk about smartphone apps and many of them send your location data back to the software author     To disable the location settings on your phone: http://www.icanstalku.com

  • How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    Learn How to Make Applesauce as fall starts and apples ripen. We get apples from our local pick your own orchard or from our neighbors who have a very nice apple orchard. After you’ve made applesauce, you can can it, watch our hot water bath canning video.

    How to make applesauce the GardenFork way

    Making applesauce is not rocket science. It does take some attention, making sure you don’t burn the bottom of the pan, but is easy to do. This is something you can do with your children, get them involved in cooking.

    How to make applesauce

    Your first choice is are you a skin on or off kind of person. I leave the skins on when cooking down apples to make applesauce. The skins add the red-pink color to the sauce and also thickens it a bit more. I think there’s also a nutritional benefit to the fruit skins.

    Next up is do you want to remove the seeds and core before or after cooking down the apples. You can core the apples before adding them into the pot, or just put whole apples in to the pot and deal with the cores later. You can also just quarter the apples and remove the seeds later.

    If you are leaving the skins on, you’ll need a food mill. These are great tools to have around anyway for other projects. You can use it to make tomato sauce and de-seed other fruit pulp.

    Also important when making applesauce is a pot with a thick bottom so the sauce does not scorch, or you can use a heat diffuser. The key here is to cook down the apples, but not burn them, low and slow works well.

    So there you go, some pointers on how to make applesauce, below is the recipe.

     

     

    How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV
    Recipe Type: Dessert
    Cuisine: American
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 32 ounces
    This recipe makes it easy to make your own applesauce.
    Ingredients
    • 3 lbs ripe apples
    • 1/2 cup water
    • 1 tablespon Cinnamon
    Instructions
    1. Core and cut the apples into quarters.
    2. Add cored – cut apples and water to the pot, put pot on high heat.
    3. When the water and apples start to sizzle, turn down the heat to low, cover, and let the apples cook down.
    4. Add the cinnamon.
    5. Mash the apples down occasionally, until the apples become sauce.
    6. If you like a smoother sauce, cook the apples down longer, taking care not to burn the apples.
  • FOUND: giant cast iron fry pan, free…

    FOUND: giant cast iron fry pan, free…

    One of the cool things about working in an urban area like Brooklyn, NY is this:

    When people want to give away or ‘recycle’ items from their apartments, they put them out on the sidewalk .

    Today, walking down President Street, I found this amazing Lodge cast iron fry pan set out on the sidewalk with a bunch of other kitchen items.

    How cool is that? Clean off the rust, re-season it, and you’ve got a great pan! Here’s a GardenFork.TV video we did about how to season cast iron pans.

    What neat street finds have you run across lately? tell us below:

  • Bearproofing your beehives with a bear proof electric fence

    Bearproofing your beehives with a bear proof electric fence

    We are going to start a second beeyard at another farm. We wanted to have a second beeyard  as a hedge against the chance that a bear will destroy our existing honeybee hives.

    Our hives in their current location are surrounded by a traditional electric fence, three strands, and is part of a larger electric fence to keep beef cattle in their pasture. Bill, who owns the farm where our hives are, thinks the local bears are already aware of his electric fence, and have not tried to get to our beehives.

    But if the bear ever did, we would lose all our hives. So we decided this year to put a few hives at another friends farm, on the other side of town.

    premier 1 bear fence
    The Electro Net fence protecting a beeyard, photo from Premier 1

    I started to look in to bear proofing and saw an ad in Bee Culture magazine for a bear proof electric fence that will protect beehives from bears. I contacted the company, Premiere 1, and they sent me an ElectroNet 9/35/12 electric fence and a PRS 50 Solar Energizer at no charge to use in our new beeyard.

    The solar Energizer, which contains the battery and electronics to zap bears, is housed in metal box that looks like it was engineered for space travel. Its pretty bulletproof.

    The electric fence and solar powered energizer for our beeyard
    Interior of the solar powered energizer

    We’ll shoot a GardenFork show about starting a new beeyard and installing this fence, and I’ll report back on how it works with our local bears. Thanks for Premier 1 for sending me this.

  • Done Is Better Than Perfect : GardenFork Radio

    Done Is Better Than Perfect : GardenFork Radio

    This episode of GardenFork Radio takes its title from a Tweet posted by Nichelle Stephens of Cupcakes Take The Cake cupcake blog. It pretty much sums up the GardenFork mindset.

    Monica, our BBQ and Food Safety Correspondent, joins us for an hour of mosquitos, tomato hornworms ( watch tomato hornworm video here ), roadfood.com, a bear proof electric fence for beehives, and Eric shares fish with Brancaccio’s Food Shop, a great italian food place in Kensington, Brooklyn

    Premiere 1 has sent us a solar powered electric fence capable of keeping bears away from your beehives, we’ll install this in our new second beeyard and shoot a video about how to bearproff your beehives and beeyard . http://www.premier1supplies.com/

  • Honeybees seal the inner cover with propopolis

    Honeybees seal the inner cover with propopolis

    We pulled the inner cover on our biggest hive, and it was not easy this time. The honeybees had sealed it pretty tight with propopolis, a waxy resin that bees collect from trees.

    honeybees propopolis
    bees seal shut the inner cover with this waxy resin
    honeybees and beekeeping
    this stuff makes it take some work to open the top of the hive
  • Charlie on the stoop photo

    Charlie on the stoop photo