Category: Podcast

We find Rick in his backyard and he tells of about his recent cardiac catherization. It all worked out fine, but Rick was impressed by how easy it was and he was out of the hospital in the same day. Rick tells of about a stroke helmet that may soon be carried on ambulances to determine what kind of stroke a patient is having. The helmet does a sonogram and detects pooling blood. Neat.

Its a good time to be alive, as we often say on GardenFork. Rick says to tell everyone you are never better. Eric is determined to seek out the good in the world. There you go.

We talk about the power of being positive, and how it gets people’s attention, and how positive thinking can be infectious.

Eric tells of the a new video this week, its a garlic scape recipe: Garlic scape frittata . It was based on a recipe by Eric’s friend Georgina.

Rick tried the watermelon salad recipe we posted last week, and it is now a favorite. Eric had this dish at the best Sunset Park restaurant, Cafe Zona Sur.

We talk about taking a cruise, prompted by a comment by Jim on a previous show. Rick like cruises, Eric has yet to take one. Jim asks about what to do about the black flies that can appear on worm compost bins.

Rick tells us how to cook collard greens, or at least how he cooks collard greens. We talk about Rick’s garden, as he is farther south than Eric, and he is already harvesting food like collards. Okra comes up in our conversation, it does not grow well in New England, but it grows in Virginia.

Rick will empty out the worm barrel tomorrow and use a lot of the castings to prep the patch for okra. We have a neat video on how to build a worm bin here.

And we talked about building birdhouses, and you can get some free birdhouse plans and a how to video here.

Using black plastic and soaker hoses is discussed, Rick has used that red tomato plastic, Eric does not like it.

We have a link to the rabies issue, but i can’t find it right now, will post it in a bit!

Water Conservation, Olive Oil & Salad Dressing, Tomato Grafting, & what else do we talk about? Rick is back from his trip, so we are back on GF Radio. Rick and Eric got to meet up in Brooklyn after Rick’s boat trip.

Rick gives us some travel photography tips, like using multiple memory cards and storing them in different places.

We then talk about our new rain barrel video, part of our urban homesteading project. The key things here are using the proper downspout diverter, and either screen the entry port of the rain barrel, or use mosquito dunks.

We then digress into rainwater harvesting in arid locations, and the issues of clean drinking water and sanitation.

But then we move onto making your own salad dressing, we have an easy salad dressing video here, that shows how to make your own vinegarette, aka balsamic vinegar dressing,  super simple.

Worm composting and tomato grafting are next. Rick’s first grafting experiment did not work, Eric suggested binding the tomato stems together using rubber bands.

Eric has worm composting questions for Rick. Eric has a raccoon problem in his backyard, and worries that the compost bin would attract the raccoon and perhaps interact badly with the dogs. Rick says the key is to manage the moisture and the smaller the items the better. The worms are actually eating the mold and such that are breaking down the compost matter.

To get composting worms, you can get them online or buy them at the local fishing bait store.

We touch on the EGO mower video sponsored by Home Depot.

Eric is joined by executive coach Rich Gee to talk about the mid life career change, becoming self employed, and creativity.

We start talking about gas grill repair, Rick tells us about how he cleans his grill and how he keeps it from rusting in winter.

A good way to get thinking is to leave the office, we talk about this concept inspired by this NY Times article: Want a good idea? Take a walk : http://well.blogs.nytimes.com

On the theme of do what you want and the money will come, it works for some, but its not for everyone. Eric likes the thinking behind Work Is Not A Job .

This starts more of our talk about work, and if you are considering making the move to self-employment.

We move onto eggs, with an NPR interview with Michael Ruhlman, one of Eric’s fav authors. We agree that most people overcook their eggs, probably out of a longstanding fear of under-cooked food in this country. BTW, there is a good interview on Alton Brown’s podcast with Michael here.

Then we talk about viewer mail and how we should deconstruct a dishwasher, which is a great idea.

To save money on your kitchen renovation, you can keep your existing cabinets and refinish them. Rick and Eric talk about refinishing kitchen cabinets and other money saving tips when doing a kitchen renovation, inspired by a post on The Kitchn, one of Eric’s favorite sites. Eric suggests using sponge rollers to paint the cabinets, and the cabinets must be clean. We were both curious about the use of cork flooring if anyone has a cork floor, we would like to hear from you.

Salt Cod is the new Bacon : From the Salt blog on NPR, we talk about salt cod, and how one can use it in cooking. One has to be mindful of the impact of cod fishing too. we don’t have a def answer on the viability of salt cod.

NPR has several podcasts that we like, notably the NPR Food Podcast.

Viewer Mail:

You can watch one of our Bread Baking videos here.
The difference between Artisan Bread & No Knead Bread

“I just watched your webisode about making bread and followed the directions verbatim and the bread came out better than any bread that I have bought from a bakery and I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. That it saying a lot. Thanks a lot for the postings.
Tom.”
“Hi Eric. I watched your video on youtube oh so long ago and then went to this HUGE site you have! WOW! Anyway, if I wanted to do a sourdough but I didn’t want to do the large container of dough in the fridge how do I make that happen? I mean I want a no knead sourdough. I’ll make the starter for the sourdough, I just don’t want that much bread starter. Could you tell me what the amounts would be reduced to for the ingredients?
I have a cast iron skillet but no lid. Could I use that instead of a dutch oven?
Thanks!
Beth”

Rick tells of how he likes the TED Radio Hour and the recent show on Success is inspiring. Rick inspires us, I think.

Pharrell Williams’ Happy song starts our show, as Eric and Rick talk about how they like the song, and as always, its easy to grumble about the world, but there are lots of reasons to be  happy. You can buy Pharell’s song, Happy, on iTunes here.

Eric talks about watching independent musicians doing cover versions of songs like Happy, and here are a few  he likes, please to go check out there music:

Walk Off The Earth
Kinna Grannis
David Unger

You can check out the entire 24 hour Happy video here : http://www.24hoursofhappy.com

The companion YouTube channel Other is here.

Patreon.com is the site Tristan talked about in his email. Here is Jack Conte talking about Patreon.com. The video is long but worth watching.

The startup satellite article that got us talking about the new space business model from the NY Times is here.

Great DIY Maker videos by Jimmy Diresta, a fellow NYC resident. Check out his videos on YouTube here. Rick watched 10 of them last night.

Eric talks about the pressure cooker short ribs he made, but first we tangent to beekeeping for a minute. Help GardenFork and you’ll get more videos!

But on to the short ribs. Bone-in Short ribs from Whole Foods go in the pressure cooker with vegetable broth and wine, plus some onions, potatoes, and carrots, and out comes a masterpiece. The gravy actually worked, using a fat separator gravy thing to get most of the fat out of the liquid from the pot.

Rick talks about his history course he is taking through Coursera. It is a MOOC, Massive Online Open Course. Rick likes how people from around the world are taking the class.

How To Turn Off Social Media, Jump starting your car, seed starting, and can you jump start a car with a Toyota Prius? Listen to GardenFork Radio to find out.

Rick and Eric talk about seed starting, and what kind of bulbs to use in your seed starting grow light. We have some great seed starting videos, Watch 5 Seed Starting Videos Here, about how to start and grow seedlings.

Its still a bit early to start seeds here in the Northeast, but you might want to start if you live farther south. Rick is once again going to graft tomatoes, after his tomato success last year. I believe some companies sell grafted seedlings. have to check on that.

What kind of bulbs should you use in  your grow light? Can you use regular fluorescent bulbs in a grow light? Rick and Eric talk about what kind of light bulbs to use in your grow lights, and talk about LED lights as well.

Eric reads a viewer mail from Kent of Grace Note Farm who runs a small scale farm. Kent is also a mac computer expert, and Rick is interested in an SSD, solid state hard drive.

Eric suggested introducing Kent to Daniel of Jacks Farm Radio podcast.

Rick talks about a blog post he wrote on his site about how social media distracts one from actually getting things done. Rick likes two programs, one is Freedom, and Anti-Social. These two apps turn off the world of the internet and allow you to focus on getting things done. They turn off the social media, so you can get things done.

Eric tells how he does not read email in the morning, but makes himself work on GardenFork, creating content instead of consuming content.

We touch on Beekeeping and Rick talks a bit about africanized bees.

Rick talks about an app called Last Pass, which he likes, and it also offers credit monitoring. We also share ways to make each password for different sites unique yet ones you can remember.

Rick uses his pressure cooker and we talk pressure cooker tips on GardenFork Radio. Cooking dried beans, Rick tells us how he made red beans and chili in the pressure cooker in a few minutes. Rick used to use a cooker like this on his boat, where energy use and food storage is at a premium.

Eric tells of how he soaks dried beans in a salt brine before cooking them. Use the hottest water out of the tap, put in a heaping tablespoon of coarse salt, mix it up and let it set of at least an hour, longer is better. This brine method will help the beans keep their shape, and taste better. Coming up are some GardenFork videos on how to use a pressure cooker, and simple white bean soup recipe using a cooker.

Eric asks people for input on the upcoming fundraiser to buy new equipment. what would be some good gifts at various pledge levels? Keep in mind the costs of shipping and all versus the donation level. Maple syrup may not be on the agenda this year due to surgery Eric has to have.

The open source fundraising software we talked about is called Selfstarter. There are also a few wordpress plugins that do fundraising.

Eldercare was the topic of our last show, talking with Eric’s sister about legal documents , power of attorney, etc that you must have in order to make decisions for your parents. Listen to that show here. The takeaway being its best to have a lawyer with knowledge of eldercare to be involved, we found. you can get all sorts of information here, according to Rick.