Eric does a solo show this week talking about an eclectic mix, as usual. First we touch on a simple medical procedure that saves lives and gets a bad rap. Then we talk about vacuums and how to plant garlic. And meeting up with friends in the minimalist pottery barn style coffee cafe. It is there where I eat sugar.
The vacuum that is the greatest thing on earth for dog hair is the Dyson Compact Ball Animal Upright. It works great in a house with 2 yellow labradors.
We read some viewer mail about our recent podcast on how Mike lost 50 pounds, and talk about how Eric was caught having sugar by someone who he forgot listens to the show.
If you have a lot of wood to split, you should split wood with a log splitter. We borrowed our neighbor’s wood splitter to tackle a large cherry tree that had died. We made a lot of firewood in a few hours, watch the video:
Some safety tips when you split wood with a log splitter
Know how to stop the machine immediately.
Where is the off or reverse switches? Know how to back up the piston real quick or to turn off the rig. Don’t become lax about operating the log splitter, its a powerful machine.
Be aware of everyone near the machine.
Accidents will occur if more than one person is operating the log splitter. Don’t assume your co-worker knows where you and your fingers are at all times.
Always wear ear and eye protection, and steel toed boots.
Its obvious, but prolonged exposure to loud noise, like that from a small engine, takes it toll on your hearing. Eye protection is a must have, after all, we’re splitting wood here. And good boots will save your feet. You need them to get along in life, OK?
Block the machine wheels to keep it from rolling.
Log splitters are on wheels so they can be moved around, so chock the wheels when its where you want it, so it doesn’t roll. Remember, round wheels will roll. Gravity wins.
Keep fingers out of log splits.
When splitting wood, its easy to get you fingers in the openings of the wood, don’t do it. Those cracks can just as easily close back up, with your fingers in them. A bad thing if you ask me.
Square the ends of the log.
You want the logs to sit flat on the back plate of the splitter. If that isn’t square, the log can twist, and potentially move in a way you’d rather it not to go. Square straight logs = good.
If you’ve borrowed the log splitter from your neighbor, return it in better shape then you got it. And fill up the tank with fresh gas that has gas stabilizer added. Your neighbor will be impressed and let you borrow it again.
Learn here how to split wood with an axe and get some exercise the same time. Using an axe to split wood is one of those zen activities for me. Its very analog and rhythmic, its you, an axe, and some firewood.
You can split wood with an axe if you are working on lighter woods, or wood that is not too large in diameter. If you find yourself using a sledgehammer or wedge to drive the axe through a log, you should consider using a maul instead.
If you have a pile of wood to work on, you might consider borrowing a powered wood splitter, we made a video about using one.
Couple of safety tips when splitting wood:
Wear safety goggles
Use steel toed shoes
Keep kids and pets out of the area
Split wood on a solid axe friendly surface
Whenever you hit a metal object with another metal object, like a sledge and an axe, you should be wearing safety glasses.
Steel toed shoes save your feet. Logs rolling onto unprotected feet is not a fun thing, trust me.
Its obvious, but when you are swinging a weighted sharp tool, you don’t want anyone nearby, not a good thing to get near when its flying toward a log being split.
Put the wood to be split on a surface that can take axe blows. A large diameter log is great, and it get the wood up higher and makes it easier to swing at. I use a large wide piece of thick lumber. Also avoid splitting wood on wet ground, makes for a mess.
Wood needs to be dried usually before you split wood with an axe. There are a few trees that split easily when freshly felled, but its easier to let them dry out, aka ‘season’. The birch logs above have cracks in them, called ‘checking’ that shows they have dried out.
Your choice of axes ranges from really nice to use what you got. What’s most important is to use a sharp axe. You can sharpen it yourself using a hand file or a metal grinder. The wood or plastic handle should be in good shape, not split or cracked. If the axe head is starting to shows signs of damage, like a mushroom back end or the handle hole is bowed out, do not use the axe, OK?
Here’s a DIY Ikea kitchen island I built out of butcher block counter top and base cabinets. The design is simple and does not require expert carpentry skills. If you can use a screw gun, and a circular saw you can build this.
How To Build An Ikea Kitchen Island:
The first step is to determine what type of countertop. Ikea has several types of butcher block counter top available. This is an oak wood top, but you may prefer another style. Oak does have some open grain to it, woods such as maple or birch have a tighter grain. Some people think the open grain can catch more stains, etc. but I’m fine with the oak.
The length of your Ikea kitchen island determines which butcher block to purchase. Right now Ikea sells two lengths, 74″ and 98″. You can easily cut these down to whatever size you need. Cutting the length shorter is easy with a circular saw.
If you need to make the counter top narrower, you will need to do what is called a rip cut, which is harder to do with a circular saw. If you don’t use the correct saw blade, you can start to burn the wood while cutting it. Pay attention to which side is marked “DOWN” that side faces down.
What do you want under the counter? For this project, we put in a dishwasher and two base cabinets with a top drawer and 2 door cabinets. Ikea is very modular, and with a mix of different cabinets, you can get pretty close to your ideal.
Screw the base cabinets together in 3 or 4 places. Drill pilot holes so the cabinet wood doesn’t crack. 3/4″ screws work well. Ikea gives you some screws to join cabinets, but they are difficult to use, I think.
To finish off the back sides of the cabinets, you can buy a sheet of backing material from Ikea. You will have to cut this to length, take your time and be careful. Put down blue masking tape right over where your cut line will occur, and mark the cut line on the tape. The tape helps make it a clean cut.
Be sure to seal the butcher block before installing it. We use the sealer from Ikea, and give it several coats, top, sides and bottom. If you are putting a dishwasher under the top, put some extra sealer in the area above where the dishwasher will go. Your dishwasher will come with a foil strip, attach this to the underside of the counter top where the vents of the dishwasher will be located. The strip helps keep the moisture from the dishwasher affecting the butcher block.
There will be some angle brackets in the box with the counter top to secure it to the base cabinets, screw these into the solid parts of the cabinets and then into the counter top.
You cant’ see it in the photos, but I bought some white outside corner molding to cover up where the cabinet backing meets the side of the cabinet. Tack it on with several small nails.
Buy the adjustable floor levelers for the base cabinets, this makes it much easier to level the kitchen island. Best to do this with the counter top in place, the weight of the top helps make it all solid. So there you go, an Ikea kitchen island you can DIY.
Mike and Rick are on the show today to talk about how Mike lost 50 pounds with simple diet. Not a fad diet like eating grapefruit or something like that.
Below is Mike’s simple diet plan:
I’m not going to go very far into how tired and unhealthy I was, I know most people will just want to get into how I started to fix the problems and what is working for me. A lot has already been written and documented on the subject of ways we’re killing ourselves with poor food choices (some not entirely our fault). I’ll just start by referencing a blog and documentary that will help explain all of my choices.
The movie “Fed Up” now available on Netflix Streaming. Loads of good information, a lot of it scary and sad. Watch it. The 10 Day No Sugar Added Challenge
What I did
I eliminated sweeteners and starches from my diet. Done.
Sweeteners are anything sweet that nature didn’t put in my food. Sugar, corn syrup, honey, agave, sugar alcohols, syrups, and all artificial sweeteners. Also, any natural sugars where someone did the extracting for me — juices — with the exception of a squeeze of lemon in my water or tea.
Starches – or “white food”. Bananas, potatoes, bread, pasta, rice or complex carbohydrates, are better than sugars because the body still needs to break them down into sugars and so they are more slowly digested. I do occasionally eat starches which I’ll cover later, but by and large I avoid them because they are too close to being sugars for daily intake.
For me the key to success was the mantra, “Don’t fake it.” By that I mean that when I got away from sweeteners and starchy foods, I did not look for calorie free alternatives (diet soda, etc). Those crutches are weak and in some cases worse for you than sugar. I also did not try to eat weak facsimiles of “bad food”. I’ll say more on that later.
This also means no special shakes or other dietary aids. They can be expensive, also, imagine yourself on a long trip. Are you packing a couple weeks worth of shakes? Probably not. You’ll be working without that crutch and you may not know how to properly eat without it. My methods have left me prepared to eat properly no matter where I am.
A last word about artificial sweeteners. One of the problems we all face today is that super-sweet artificial sweeteners dull your ability to taste natural sugars. As you break the sugar habit you’ll learn that regaining your taste for natural sugar is important for staying sugar free and healthy. Food will taste different – better, because you’ll be able to taste the natural sugars within.
To Start
I did not break my sugar addiction all at once. Like dipping your toes into a cold pool and slowly getting in deeper and deeper as your body gets used to the cold, I did it in small steps before finally plunging all-in.
First
Remove all sugary drinks from your diet. Not just drinks with added sugar. No sugary drinks at all – this includes 100% fruit juice.
Things to drink
• Water (with a small squeeze of lemon if you like)
• Unsweetened Iced Tea (with a bit of lemon if you like)
• Coffee (with some cream if you like)
One side benefit to only drinking water is you’ll find that your food bills, especially restaurant tabs, will be reduced significantly. Restaurants charge $2 – $3 for the “free” refill soda they sell. Remember – don’t fake it. Diet “ANYTHING” isn’t good for you and the super sweet artificial sweeteners dull your ability to taste natural sugars.
Juice is essentially sugar water squeezed from a fruit. Even 100% natural juice. It’s water, sugar, and some nutrients. Other than some vitamin C, orange juice is just as bad as a glass of coke when it comes to taking in low volume high calorie foods.
Get in this habit first. I consider this one of the easiest adjustments to make. Get past this and enjoy the victory and extra cash in your pocket.
Start eating vegetables
Every meal, make sure you have a big pile of green, orange, and yellow vegetables. If you already like vegetables, great, eat more. At resturants tell them, “No potato, please double the vegetables”. It’s easy and they all do it without hesitation.
Things to eat
The list of things NOT to eat is too long. Obviously nothing with sugar (or sweetener crutches) in it. What I made is a list of what to eat. This list is remarkably easy to maintain. You only need to remember a few things. Eat a protein and at least twice the volume of protein in vegetables. (Green and yellow vegetables, not potatoes.)
My meals are simple. By that I mean, a protein sauteed in some olive oil with salt, pepper, and other herbs and spices. Vegetables steamed seasoned with some salt and pepper with a little butter. It’s easier to stay on track this way than it is to try and figure out what sauces and coatings are OK. Sauces are additional calories and are usually sugary/starchy.
Repeating myself — go heavy on the vegetables. I don’t think you can eat too many of them. Eating a pork chop and three baby carrots isn’t balanced. Load up on those vegetables.
Your eating day
If you don’t eat breakfast, start! Seriously, it sets the stage for the rest of the day. I start every day with three scrambled eggs, a glass of water, maybe a cup of coffee with cream, and a fruit (usually an orange). This isn’t negotiable. If you have to wake up 15 minutes earlier, do it. Eating breakfast keeps you feeling great until lunch. If you’re starving at 10 AM, when you leave for lunch you’ll be more inclined to just go get the fastest easiest (shittiest) food available.
Breakfast
• Eggs
• Bacon (hickory smoked – no “maple” or such.)
• Sausage (Check ingredients they’ll sneak sugar into some sausage. Corn Syrup is like the 3rd ingredient in a hot dog)
• Replace any potatoes with fruit or tomatoes – most restaurants will do this, it’s more common than you think.
• Fruit (avoid bananas – they’re starchy)
Lunches and Dinners
• A protein
◦ Fish
◦ Chicken
◦ Pork
◦ Beef
◦ Eggs
• A vegetable
◦ Any green vegetable
◦ Salad
◦ Tomatoes
◦ Avacados
◦ Nuts (avoid flavored nuts… sugar abounds in anything “glazed”)
◦ No starchy vegetables like potatoes or corn
• Dessert
◦ Fruit (avoid bananas – starchy!)
◦ Unsweetened Greek yogurt with berries
Short list of things to avoid
• Rice
• Potatoes
• Flour of any kind
• Bread
A typical day
Breakfast
• Three Scrambled eggs made with a tablespoon of olive oil. (Sometimes butter, it depends on my mood)
• Glass of ice water (a glass or two at every meal is important. Dehydration is often mistaken for hunger.)
• Orange
Lunch
• Sauteed seasoned chicken breast / pork chop / fish fillet
• Big portion of vegetables (Broccoli, Carrots, Peas, Spinach, etc) (2 cups or more)
• A couple of glasses of ice water.
• Fruit
Snack
• Nuts (nothing ‘glazed’)
• Fruit (I really love cherries, they’re a super food)
• Cup of plain greek yogurt with a cup of frozen berries (defrosted in the microwave)
• Cup of coffee with cream
• Glass of ice water.
Dinner
• Sauteed seasoned chicken breast / pork chop / fish filet
• Big portion of vegetables (Broccoli, Carrots, Peas, Spinach, etc) (2 cups or more)
• A couple of glasses of ice water.
• Fruit
Don’t fake it.
Don’t eat sugar/starch free versions of sugary/starchy foods. You’re setting yourself up for failure.
Stop going to restaurants where you have to bend over backwards to avoid sugar and starches. Just divorce yourself from them. It makes things too difficult to stay on track. People will tell you that you can just order the burger without the bun and not get fries. Or order the big sandwich without the bread. They’ll wrap it in lettuce for you. Bluntly, this is dumb.
Your goal should be finding delicious and appealing sugar and starch free food. Not crappy versions of food that are ‘kind of like’ what you’re used to eating. Eating a great piece of fish with some nice vegetables and a great apple is satisfying. Using a fork and knife to eat a hamburger patty while watching your friend eat a burger normally is going to get really old – fast. Don’t go to fast food places of any kind. There’s nothing there for you.
Exceptions/Additions
This is meant to be a guide. I didn’t want to overload you so I kept it simple. But over time, read the ingredients and add things one at a time until you have a fuller list of things you can eat. Hot sauce normally doesn’t have any sugar in it. So if you want more flavor from hot sauce, go for it. Things like that.
There can be exceptions if you manage them well. I use salad dressing. There are many options that don’t have additional sugar, but when I started, I still used french dressing, which has sugar in it. However, I would order it on the side, and drizzle it onto the salad in very small strands. After putting the dressing on the salad, if you looked at the cup it came in, it looked like I didn’t use any at all. You’ll be given ¼ cup of dressing to use and you can really do fine using 1 or 2 teaspoons of it.
If I’m going to do some kind of long rigorous exercise like a long (30+ mile) bike ride. I will eat starches to build up my glycogen stores. I will be burning it all off so I’ll eat complex carbs like potatoes and pasta. In this case, I’m not interested in weight loss. Just being able to complete my long ride with all of the energy I need. Once I’m done with the ride, I fall right back into my normal day to day habits.
Making the final transition and stuff you’ll notice
After a few weeks of learning how to eat without sugar and starch, you’ll be ready to take the final plunge. No sugar. I’m not going to say it will be easy. You’ll be cranky for a couple of weeks. You may get headaches and suffer other withdrawal symptoms. When I was making the transition, I ate lot of fruit. It helped.
What I noticed was that after the first week, it was much easier. After a couple of weeks, I was fine. After four weeks, something remarkable happened. I was eating eggs for breakfast and I couldn’t believe how great they tasted. The… best… eggs… ever.
They weren’t special eggs. It was the fact that I was starting to taste the food more. My pallet that was blasted by ultra-sweetness for years made it impossible for me to notice the natural sugars in foods. I was starting to taste them again and it was good.
I found that plain greek yogurt, which was a little hard to eat at first, tasted different. I could taste the natural sweetness. I found that oranges started to taste VERY sweet. Like candy. Also, vegetables got tastier.
I didn’t miss sugar at all because there were so many other great tasting things.
I also found that I wasn’t hungry all of the time. I began losing weight, effortlessly. I did count calories at first to make sure I stayed on track (with My Fitness Pal) but I found that eating a piece or two of tilapia (which you can buy individually wrapped and frozen) and a pile of steamed broccoli was only a couple hundred calories. I could double the size of lunch and still be well below my allotted calories. Eliminating high calorie low benefit food makes calorie counting effortless.
I occasionally check in, but now I just eat normally and the weight continues to come off slowly but surely. (over 55 pounds lost in four months so far)
The other thing I noticed was watching the daily nutrition reports (Daily vitamins, fat, protein, etc) of my daily eating just balanced out by itself. In the past when only following calories I found that I’d fall short on vitamin A or something and have to supplement. When I started eating a protein, vegetables, and fruit, I was getting everything I needed.
You’ll notice that you’ll almost never go into the pantry any more. All of your food will come from the fridge. It’s just something I noticed. If I go into the pantry for something I know that it’s
probably not good.
Liquor
I don’t know what to tell you here. I don’t drink much of the stuff typically. I drink with friends. Sometimes too much. I probably would have lost more weight by now*. But the things I do drink? Wine. Beer. That’s it. Mixed drinks are usually mixed with sugary stuff.
Over the past four months I probably averaged a bottle of wine per week. Depending on who you are, that may seem like a lot, but that equates to four glasses of wine.
I list this under exceptions. Also, as I write this, I’m only about five months in. I feel like in another couple of months I’ll be identifying other foods I can live without. Alcohol is on the short list of things to limit.
* This is a marathon, not a sprint. You can go a week or two without losing any weight, or even gaining a pound or two. If you stick with the good habits long term the weight will start coming off again.
A word about cost
Getting non-fast food at lunch every day means sitting down at a restaurant and that gets expensive. Right? It’s true you pay more at a sit down restaurant, however you need to look at the big picture. Your grocery bills will drop. You won’t be so famished at lunch because you ate a good breakfast, so you’ll eat less. I assure you, over time, at the end of each day you won’t have spent any more money on food.
I buy large bags of frozen vegetables and frozen chicken and fish. Most meals I cook cost me $2 – $3 and they look better than most restaurant dishes.
There is nothing saying you have to go out for lunch each day when you’re working either. A pre-cooked chicken breast and frozen vegetables heated up in the microwave will only cost you a couple of dollars.
Occasionally, have some sugar.
There’s that word – occasion. Before we had super-factories cranking out tons of sugar, candy, cakes, etc, that are available everywhere at all times, treats were rare and they were saved for special occasions. Your birthday. Christmas day. Your anniversary. Special times. Have a nice dessert on those days. That won’t kill you. But you may need to raise your standards for what constitutes a special occasion. “I worked hard today” isn’t an occasion. If you’re having more than four special occasions a year, you’re celebrating too much stuff.
Ending thoughts
“But I’ve heard that a calorie is a calorie. Where weight loss is concerned, eating 200 calories of chocolate is the same as eating 200 calories of broccoli.”
Wrong. Period. For me, this is the best way to visualize the process.
For your body to process sugar to turn it into excess energy where it then turns it into fat, this is the process:
1: Sugar →
2: Fat. Done.
For your body to extract the sugars from broccoli (or an orange). It has to act like a sugar factory.
1: Broccoli
2 – 20: Your body does everything this sugar mill has to do to extract sugar.
Actual sugar mill. Look at all of the energy spent to extract sugar from super sweet sugarcane!
21: Fat Done.
How much of those 200 broccoli calories are going to end up as fat vs. the 200 calories of sugar?
If you eat only 1,200 calories a day made up of nothing but brownies and fudge, you’ll lose weight. You will feel like crap because you’re getting no nutrients. You’ll lose muscle and fat. You’ll have short spurts of energy followed by bouts of exhaustion. You will feel sore and sick. You’ll be hungry all of the time. You’ll feel sick, tired, hungry, depressed and if you’re like me you’ll try to feel better emotionally by eating ice cream.
This is the most sustainable thing I’ve done for myself. Call it paleo, atkins, whatever. Don’t screw yourself up with too many rules or things to think about. Eat a protein, a green vegetable, and drink some water or tea. Eat as much of those things as it takes to not be hungry. That’s it. Simple. It will be hard at first, but then it will become very easy. At least, it has for me.
Linn from the YouTube Channel and website Darbin Orvar joins Eric to talk about the maker movement, being inspired by what other people create, and how to apply stain to your woodworking.
Eric always sweats the finish process of woodworking projects, Darbin doesn’t. We learn that there is more than one way to apply stain, and less is sometimes better.
Watch the woodworking projects on Linn’s Darbin Orvar YouTube Channel and check out her wood finishes and wooden mallets she sells on her website.
A new kale pesto recipe, one that is simply and brilliant and why didn’t I think of this earlier. Kale pesto. Easy to make and a new way to get more green superfoods into your diet. Here we go.
This kale pesto recipe is a classic GardenFork ‘Use What You Got’ kine of meal. The short version is take kale, make pesto, mix into pasta, dollop into soup, or spread on toast. This recipe makes a big batch which you can use for a pasta dinner, and then use the remaining pesto for lunch or enhance dinner the next night or two.
This kale pesto goes nicely mixed into our White Bean Soup recipe. The smooth flavor of the white beans gets spiked with this greens & cheese mix. Nice.
In this recipe video I show how we stem the kale. I don’t use a knife, just stripping the stems off with your hands saves time. I think I learned this technique from watching Sarah Moulton do it on one of her cooking shows.
You can use whatever kale you have on hand or that is in your garden. I grow a classic green curly kale, and a red russian kale, which has a flat leaf. For this video, I added both into the food processor. Lacinato kale, aka dinosaur kale, also works. Wash off the kale before you start!
Key here is to use a good quality extra virgin olive oil. Buy the real thing. Cheap extra virgin probably isn’t the real deal, in my opinion. I like to use Pecorino Romano cheese, which has a nice saltiness to it. You can also use Parmesan, but don’t buy any pre-grated cheese, it tastes like stale cardboard.
Start out with one medium clove of garlic, the garlic flavor will grow if you store the pesto. I like to let the minced or pressed garlic sit out on cutting board for a while before adding it into the processor, I believe it mellows out the bite a bit.
If you are using this new kale recipe with pasta, drizzle some olive oil over the pasta and pesto just before serving. Make it all work that much better.
Thanks to Sarah Moulton for the kale stemming tip, you can check out one her cookbooks here:
Kale Pesto Recipe
Cuisine: Italian
Author: Eric Rochow
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 2 cups
A kale recipe that is a no-brainer but one I had not thought of before. Easy to make and one more way to get your family to eat kale and like it.
Ingredients
1 good bunch of kale, Stems removed, Enough to fill your food processor.
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cups of Pecorino Romano cheese
1 medium clove garlic
Instructions
Mince or press the garlic clove and let it sit while prepping the other ingredients.
If you have time, toast the walnuts in a pan on the stove, toss a few times. Pay attention so you don’t burn them. You can also toast them in the oven
Wash and remove the stems from the kale. Dry the kale as best you can.
Put the kale leaves in the food processor and pour the oil over the leaves.
Process for about 15 seconds and then press the leaves down with a rubber spatula, process again to get the leaves roughly chopped.
Add to the processor the cheese, walnuts, and garlic
Process again, stopping to use the spatula to get everything mixed well.
I prefer a coarse chopped pesto, but process to the consistency you prefer.
I often get asked, “Does it make any difference if the water supply line is hooked up to cold water line rather than hot?” To understand this fully, first watch this video on how to install a dishwasher.
Are you not sure which water pipe you hooked up the dishwasher to? Or are we just figuring out which water valve we need to connect the dishwasher supply hose to before we start the install. For either one, we need to understand dishwasher soap to grasp the whole picture here.
The new formulations of dishwasher detergent have gotten very good at cleaning dishes, and its now common practice to not rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Yes, knock off the large stuff, but just put them in. Rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher is a waste of water and your time.
Make sure the dishes face toward the center of the machine. If you have a large pan that needs cleaning, put it face down so the spray jets can do their best cleaning. Plastic items and glasses should go on the top rack. Consumer Reports has found that the detergent pods are the best detergents right now.
Most dishwashers have a water pre-heat function, sometimes it is a feature you can turn on or off, but leave it turned on. Dishwasher detergent, and your dishwasher, work best with very hot water. And when you first turn on your dishwasher, the water in the hot water supply is probably not very hot. The dishwasher pre-heater brings it up to a higher temperature, allowing the detergent to work at its best. The pre-heater supplements the water coming in from the hot water line, don’t think you can hook it up to the cold water line and rely on the pre-heater.
This is why, for dishwashers, its always the hot water supply line.
When doing a dishwasher installation, I have found the existing water supply line hooked up to the wrong pipe. Check under the sink that the dishwasher line is actually hooked up to hot water pipe. If it is not, you will have to switch out the valves under the sink to you can attach the washer line to the hot water pipe. Here’s a good book on basic plumbing that I learned a lot from.
Erin of The Impatient Gardener joins us to talk about the lost art of letter writing, she is reading Dear Friend and Gardener, a collection of letters between two friends. We ponder whether we have friends to write to, and then what are their mailing addresses?
We touch on Mail Art, which Eric has created over the years. Love the photocopier.
Is summer over? Erin thinks this winter will be mild because of the El Nino patterns. Despite being on the coast of Lake Michigan, she hopes less snow. We’ll see.
Erin is getting a new iPhone, and this starts a conversation on waiting in line for new phones, and then waiting in line at a restaurant. Which brings us to diners.
Eric has a fondness for the Waffle House, their super friendly staff and the neat system they have for tagging which dishes get what food as it is prepared.
GardenFork loves diners. agreed. Eric has the Collins Diner near him in Canaan, CT . Do you have a favorite diner? Let us know in the comments below.
When is frost coming near you? Eric needs to maintain his weather station provided by Allison House.
We geek out for a minute as Eric has been tweaking the website to load faster. Eric has mirrored all the images for the site onto Amazon’s Cloud service. We then go off on a tangent about computer security.
We talk about our video on natural weed control, we filmed this at our neighbor’s house, they have a really nice garden. Erin uses comfrey as a mulch around tomatoes, and makes a tea out of the leaves as well.
The mountain camp method of feeding your bees sugar during winter is the best way I’ve found so far to provide bees with an emergency food source. For whatever reason, honeybees may run through their winter food stores, and need additional food to get through the tough winter months. The mountain camp method provides this back up food source in a brilliantly simple way. Watch our intro video and follow up video, then read through the rest of this beekeeping 101 post.
Mountain Camp Method How To
Before I started to use this technique, every fall I would make sugar patties for the top of the hives as an emergency feed. They work fine, but making sugar cakes is a pain. This does the same thing.
The mountain camp method of feeding honeybees emergency sugar is pretty simple. And that’s why I love it. Here’s how to do it:
Lay a sheet of newspaper over the top of the hive, cutting it down so there is space around the inside perimeter of the hive box.
Pour granulated sugar on top of the newspaper.
Spray the pile of sugar with water so it crusts over.
Place a spacer shim and/or an insulated inner cover over the pile of sugar.
We built these DIY insulated inner covers that have a spacer built in to allow for sugar feeding, be it sugar syrup in zipper bags or pollen patties. If you don’t use a cover with that allows for this, you can build a simple spacer out of 1″x3″ common pine. I haven’t seen a spacer that’s deep enough for sale anywhere. They are easy to make.
Insulated Inner Cover with built-in spacer for sugar feedingSimple spacer allows for dry and wet sugar feeding. Easy to build.
This pile of sugar on top of the hive provides a second benefit, it absorbs moisture in the hive during winter, and prevents condensation from dripping back down on to the bees. Wet bees in winter is a very bad thing.
Questions I have gotten about this method:
Can I feed them this dry sugar instead of sugar syrup in the fall? No. You still need to feed the bees sugar syrup in the fall. Watch our Sugar Syrup Feed videos.
My bees have plenty of honey and I fed them sugar syrup during the fall, why do I need to do this? I do the same thing in the fall, but the dry sugar is an emergency winter feed. Sometimes bees run out of their own stores, or sometimes they can’t get to them. Below is a photo of bees taking up sugar I provided them. If I hadn’t provided the bees with this emergency sugar, they would be dead now.
Why is it called mountain camp? From what I understand, a person who goes by that name posted this method online a while back and the name stuck.
Check out more of our beekeeping 101 and winter prep videos and posts:
Want to keep weeds down without spraying? Natural weed control is the way to go using this woven weed fabric. This video is an update to our previous how to control weeds video, showing how the weed fabric has held up to 6 years of New England weather.
I’m using the term natural weed control in a broad sense here, not wanting to get into the weeds about whether using a plastic material is natural. But rather in the sense that we are not using chemical weed killer, and by depriving the weed seeds of light, we keeping the weeds down in the garden.
This was purchased from a local greenhouse supply, you can buy the weed fabric online also. I’ve seen this fabric used as the floor of greenhouses and nursery yards. The fabric comes in rolls, and my neighbor got a friend to sew the fabric into a one giant piece. Each fall, the plants are pulled up and the fabric is rolled up and stored in the barn.
Large cement blocks hold down the edges of the fabric, and bricks are interspered between the plant rows throughout the garden to keep it from blowing up and away. To plant seedlings in the fabric, a propane torch is used to create holes. The torch singes the edges of the plastic, keeping it from fraying.
This natural weed control method works great for squash cucumbers, and whatever other vines you want to grow. It makes it much easier to harvest squash when the plants aren’t covered in weeds. It also makes it easier to spot damage by insects – watch our squash vine borer treatment videos.
This weed fabric is UV stable, meaning it is resistant to the sunlight degrading the material. If you use regular plastic sheeting, it will break down in the sunlight. You can see us use black plastic mulch in this tomato video.
GardenFork Patron Scott joins us to talk about his career as an agronomist on a large scale farm in Alberta, Canada and his backyard gardening with rain barrels. Scott describes himself as: Agronomist. Husband & Father. Avid gardener. Love to read. Freethinker. Love to learn new technology.
After listening to this podcast, you’ll see this is very accurate.
Scott lives in a fairly dry part of Canada which is north of Montana, and farmers there are dependent on reservoirs that collect the snow melt each spring. This water is then fed into the farms and sprayed over circular fields using an overhead watering system. Check out this neat aerial photo Scott took of one of these crop circles. The fields are circular because of the water system design, which pivots from a center pole that supplies the water, and the watering system moves around that center pole.
Scott tells us about his use of a drone to keep up on the fields he manages. Right now he is taking photos to see how the watering system is working. An aerial view can tell you if part of the water system is not working, as the plants will not be growing as well. More advanced uses of drones in farming can show disease and such. For the moment, Scott is not using the drone to spot disease, but stay tuned.
At home, you’d think someone who farms all day long would not want to farm at home, but that is what he does. Living in a dry area where rain is scarce, Scott has built a DIY rain barrel system and watering array. He has posted 2 articles on Medium about his backyard project.
The system uses barrels from a local food company that buys fruit juice in bulk. This is great, because the barrels are made of food grade plastic. He was able to purchase them for a few bucks, which makes it all even better.
Erik from the Root Simple Podcast joins Eric to talk about how to keep cool when the power goes out in Los Angeles. He is now more prepared to power outages because of the ham radio he bought here.
Buying a cheap box fan, Erik crafted the DIY Whole House for his L.A. home.
Erik’s how to make pizza method uses the stovetop and broiler, learn how here.
Making sauerkraut is the gateway recipe to fermentation success. Here’s how to make sauerkraut: shred cabbage, add salt, put in jar. Done. In this recipe video i wanted to show that making sauerkraut does not have to involve large fermentation crocks and lots of work. This is small batch kraut made easy.
Making Sauerkraut Is Not Rocket Science
I’ve heard from a few people about their fermentation failures, usually with a recipe for making sauerkraut. The first time I tried to make it, it didn’t work out. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is using tap water that has been chlorinated. I figured this out when I was baking bread, I found that using water from our Brita Water Filter Pitcher allowed the yeast to work much better.
This sauerkraut how to is based on the methods laid out by Leda Meredith in her book, Preserving Everything. I think a lot of people have this impression that you have to have big fermentation crocks and tons of cabbage to make this. Leda’s method uses mason jars. You can use most any glass jar, you just need to be able to cover the jar in some way. Either with a lid or maybe plastic wrap with a rubber band to cover the top – whatever works for you. What does not work is metal containers, use only ceramic, glass, or food grade plastic. If you use a plastic container, it will smell like fermented food forever after, in my experience.
How you chop the cabbage for making sauerkraut is a matter of preference. Basically, do you like chunky or fine kraut? If you cut the cabbage with a knife, you can get chunky cabbage. If you use a knife, mash and crush the cabbage before adding it to the jar, you want to break down the cell walls of the cabbage leaves to allow the fermentation to start quickly.
A box grater works, but I suggest a food processor with a shredding blade.
You want the cabbage to start making a brine fairly quickly, which is why I like to use a food processor to shred the cabbage. This method lets a lot of liquid out of the leaves and mixes with the coarse salt you’ve added to make the brine.
If the brine does not start by itself within an hour, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a cup of filtered water, and top up the jar. Some cabbage will always float a bit, but you want most of the cabbage submerged.
Press down the cabbage, if you see some bubbles come up out of the brine, you are making sauerkraut. If you don’t see bubbles, be patient, wait up to 4 days, just be sure the brine is topped off and keep the jar in a dark place. You can start eating the kraut after it has been fermenting for 3 days, but I like to wait at least 1 week. Some people wait a month.
Small bubbles means fermentation has started!
After the initial 3-4 days of fermentation, I keep my sauerkraut in the fridge, I think it mellows the kraut, and it will keep for 6 months. Visit Leda’s website for great foraging info and food preservation recipes.
Small batch fermentation in mason jars allows you to make sauerkraut the easy way. This sauerkraut recipe is based on Leda Meredith’s single jar kraut in her book, Preserving Everything.
Ingredients
One small head green cabbage
1 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
Filtered water
One pint mason jar
Instructions
Remove any wilted parts of the cabbage
Cut cabbage in half lengthwise, then cut each side into quarters.
Put shredding blade on food process and shred the cabbage.
Layer the cabbage into a pint mason jar, adding about 1″ of cabbage, then some of the salt.
Press down the cabbage a few times while adding the layers.
Add cabbage until the level reaches about 1/4″ below the rim of the jar.
Let sit for 1-2 hours.
If brine does not develop, add 1/2 teaspoon salt into 1 cup water, and add to top of cabbage.
Keep cabbage submerged in brine, add saltwater mix as needed.
Put on jar lid loosely, let sit in a dark place to ferment for 3-4 days.
Do you drill into the brick or mortar when you are going to hang a picture, TV, or shelves on a brick wall? I get this question all the time when people watch our first how to hang shelves on a brick wall video.
There are all sorts of experts on the web, with varying degrees of expertise, who will weigh in on this topic. I work 80% of the time in 120 year old brownstone row houses, where there are many brick walls. I have hung many TVs, heavy mirrors, large pictures, etc. on brick walls. So I have an opinion about what is best that is based on experience.
Do You Drill Into Brick or the Mortar?
I’ve seen lots of crumbling mortar in the old buildings I work in, and some bad brick, but I always drill into the brick. If you are drilling into cinder block or cement block, I drill into that and not the cement pointing around the block.
In my mind, bricks are stronger than the mortar around them. They can hold an anchor and a screw or bolt well. I suggest using plastic anchors for lightweight objects, and lead anchors for medium weight items. For heavy things like TVs, you should use sleeved anchors. Be aware that once you put a sleeved anchor into brick or block, it probably won’t come back out, its permanent. Something to consider if the house is a rental.
When drilling into cinder block, aka cement block, most blocks have hollow spaces in them, so you may be pressing on the drill and then you will hit the hollow space, and the drill will slam into the cement face. If the cinder block is an outside wall, the hollow spaces may be filled with cement and rebar (reinforcing rod) if you hit rebar with the drill bit, its not good. The drill bit will be damaged and you can’t drill through rebar with a masonry bit.
Eric talks about fear of failure in two recent projects that became successes when he persevered. If you at least try, you won’t fail comes from Dr Paul Hirth, a high school teacher in St Louis.
GF patron Scott writes in to tell us about his method for cooling down the house using the attic fan.
Here’s a video on how we harvest honey using an uncapping roller. This extracting tool has saved us a lot of time, say goodbye to capping knives.
Using an uncapping knife gouges the honeycomb
Previous to my friend Rick telling me about this cool too, we would use a capping knife to cut open all the honeycomb to harvest honey. This results in a lot of wax and damaged honeycomb frames. I never liked this part of the honey extraction process, always gouging out chunks of honeycomb.
But the uncapping roller is great –buy it here . You have to take care not to press it too hard into the comb, or you will damage it, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. Roll it several times back and forth and up and down. You may have to pull a few frames out of the extractor and re-roll them.
I have found that not all the honey comes out of the comb, but its not an issue for me. I put the honey supers back on the hive, above the inner cover, and let the bees clean up the frames. Its all good. I have found it helpful to have a hair dryer, aka blow dryer blowing hot air into the extractor. It seems to help the honey sling out of the comb.
Combining this new roller with the DIY bee escape board we made – video here – , honey extraction has become a much easier process. I have found its best to put the escape board on the hive a 2 days before you plan on removing the honey super.
The capping roller doesn’t ruin much of the comb.
The uncapping roller cleans up easily. I use a spatula to remove as much of the wax cappings as possible from the tool and then I run it under water for a minute.
Honey harvesting has always been labor intensive, but with a honey uncapping roller, its a lot easier. This is the second harvest we’ve done with the comb roller, and its much easier to use than a hot capping knife.
With a capping knife, its easy to gouge out large chunks of honeycomb, exactly what you want to avoid in the first place. The idea is to remove the beeswax caps on the honey cells, but not damage the cells themselves. Its an ideal that we don’t achieve often. When you only do honey harvesting twice a year, you don’t get to practice much with the uncapping tools.
With the honey uncapping roller, ( buy it here ) you just roll the tool across the face of the frame several times up and down, and side to side. You have to be careful not to crush the comb, especially when extracting honey from wired foundation. ( I prefer plastic foundation, btw )
I have found that sometimes, after putting the frames into the extractor, I may have to re-roll areas of the frame, but its still so much better than using a capping knife.
Very little beeswax in the honey when using this tool
Honey harvesting is easier, here’s why:
You get a lot less beeswax in your honey
No hot knife that is plugged into the wall
Most anyone can do this task
Honeycomb is not destroyed.
You no longer need a cappings tub of some sort to catch all the beeswax and honey while uncapping. I stand the frames up in an old cake pan. While bottling the honey, the honey runs through a kitchen sieve. The amount of beeswax cappings from one super is less than a handful.
Honey Frames after Honeybees cleaned them up
I have found that at times, not all the honey is extracted from the frames, but to me its not a big deal. I put these frames back out in the beeyard and they are cleaned up quickly by the honeybees.
Linn from the YouTube Channel and website Darbin Orvar joins Eric to talk about the maker movement, being inspired by what other people create, and how to apply stain to your woodworking.
