GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

  • Nettles Plant Identification & Foraging

    Nettles, aka Stinging Nettles are a wild food that is edible. Here is video about how to cook nettles for a pesto recipe we made. Foraging for nettles is easy, they grow like the weeds they are considered, and are easy to harvest. Nettles have hairs along the stem that will sting you if you grab the plant, so wear gloves. The key to eating nettles is to blanch the leaves and stems in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain. Nettles taste like spinach, and have been used to treat numerous ailments.

    For some reason I associate Nettles with medieval times, not sure why, it just seems like the people of that age would use Stinging Nettles to treat ailments in addition to harvesting nettles to eat.

    The nettles that grow in our area are perennial, and have squarish stems, like mint does. It grows up to about 3 feet high in summer, and spreads by rhizomes. Stinging Nettles are native to North America, but I don’t think harvesting them for personal use will put a dent in the number of them in our world. To harvest nettles you can cut the stem or pull out whole plants with the roots. You can transplant young nettle plants into your edible medicinal plant garden if you like. The plants will spread, so you might want to keep the roots contained.

    Here is picture of edible stinging nettles:

  • Simple Pizza and Bread Oven Plans GF Radio

    Stuart Silverstein joins us to talk about how to build backyard bread and pizza ovens.

    You can watch our how to build a brick pizza oven video here.

    You can buy Stuart’s book here

  • Build a simple ledge nest birdhouse GF.TV video

    Here’s  simple bird house you can build that is perfect for a parent – child project using simple tools. This kind of birdhouse is used for ledge nesters, these birds are looking for a protected flat surface where they can build  nest.

    You can watch our other how to build a birdhouse video here

    You can use scrap lumber for this project; its a great way to declutter your workshop and do a good deed at the same time.

    We need to build birdhouses to provide birds with nesting sites as their habitat is changed by humans. The bird house plan in this how-to video is a ledge nest style birdhouse for birds who would normally nest on an outcropping or a tree limb. The other style of birdhouse commonly built is a cavity nest, its you typical birdhouse, a box with a hole drilled into it.

    Not all birds will use a cavity nest, so we build ledge nests too. I put the ledge nest birdhouses under the eaves of our outbuildings, so the bird nest has protection from rain.

    Ledge nest is best located under the eave of a roof

    These houses need to be put up high, 10 feet high if possible, the birds do not like to be disturbed. We have several near a dusk to dawn outdoor light, and the birds are attracted to the moths that fly around the light, free food right there.

    Do you build birdhouses or go birdwatching? let us know below:

  • Drone Laying Worker in a Queenless Hive

    When we check our honeybee hives, we first just stand there and observe them. We could tell there was something wrong with one of the hives.

    note the large drone cells scattered about

    It was quiet, the hive next to it was buzzing with activity.

    We opened it up to hear this odd low frequency hum in the hive, not something you usually hear. One look at a brood frame told us we had a bad problem on our hands.

    The queen was dead.

    And to make matters worse, one or more workers had started laying eggs in the cells, and since workers are infertile, all the eggs are drones.

    Queenless hive, signs of the drone laying worker here

     

    So how can a worker bee lay eggs? If  a hive is queenless, her pheromone is absent, and a few of the workers can then begin lay eggs. It doesn’t happen everytime a hive loses  queen, and this is the first time it has happened to us.

    You can’t just put  new queen in one of these hives, as the laying workers will kill the new queen. You have two choices, either combine the queenless hive with a healthy hive nearby, or get rid of the laying workers.

    One of our Facebook fans explained how she did this:

    Rhonda wrote: “Not good. I had this happen last year. I took the hive that had some young bees and some older bees in it and moved at about 2000′ away from the original location, dumped all the bees out onto the ground-every one of them, then took the hive body back to the original location. The younger, drone layers had not been out of the hive yet, so they could not find their way back home. I then transferred a queen cell from another hive into that hive and before long everything was good again. I know, it as a bit chancy, but the other options weren’t much better.”

    Healthy frame of brood, note the curled up larvae.

    The laying workers are nurse bees who have yet to leave the hive, so they have don’t know any outdoor landmarks or orientation to return to the hive. The older bees, who are foragers, know the location of the hive, so when dumped out of the hive, they will fly back to its location.

    This hive was pretty weak, so I’m thinking right now i’ll combine it with the stronger hive next to it, and perhaps split the strong hive in  week or two, with a new queen in the split. * we did the beehive combine, click here to see how to combine beehives

    Have you dealt with a drone laying worker? Let us know below

  • Drip Irrigation Helps This Sidewalk Container Garden Grow

    I ran across this soaker hose drip irrigation setup in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Using drip irrigation to water a container garden is great, as the soil in containers dry out fast, especially those pots made out of terra cotta. The setup shown in the pictures here is similar to the one we built for our DIY container garden drip irrigation GardenFork video here.

    I like how the supply hoses are tucked away, you don’t see them unless you look closely. The supply hose runs around the end of the fencing and into the building, where its hooked up to a water timer. I can’t tell if this is a system the owner bought or they built DIY from hardware store components.

    There are brass fittings to connect the soaker hose to the supply lines between each container, which you can source in the plumbing department of your hardware store. The hose used looks like black vinyl, it works well because it disappears visually, I think.

    Putting the soaker hose system on a timer is essential, it keeps you from forgetting to water the plants, and it keeps you from over-watering the plants. Overwatering is one of the reasons plants die, one can drown their plants in water, which causes all sorts of fungus and disease.

    On the topic of container gardening, here is a good book on that:


    Buy From An Independent Bookstore Here

    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Signs of the Pileated Woodpecker

    When we’re hiking, we often come across trees that have piles of fresh woodchips at the base of the tree, and farther up the trunk is a large hole. I didn’t know what this was, so I did some research.

    Turns out this is the work of the Pileated Woodpecker, a fairly large bird who makes these large holes in tree trunks looking for carpenter ants to eat.

    The Pileated Woodpecker is about the size of a crow, but is instantly recognizable by its bright red head. The male has a red line across its cheek, the female has a black one. According to The Audubon Society, it is the 2nd largest woodpecker in the U.S., after the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. The Pileated Woodpecker lives mainly in forested areas, but has adapted somewhat to being near urban areas.

    While you may not like the idea of a woodpecker making these holes in trees in your forest, they are looking for carpenter ants, and its likely they are excavating trees that are rotten or hollow on the inside, in other words, unhealthy trees to start with. The pileated also eats the berries of poison ivy, btw.

    Having had carpenter ants in my house, I’m not a big fan of them, so I’m glad the Pileated does eat them.

    Female Pileated Woodpecker

     

    Pileated Woodpeckers hollow out a new nest in a different tree, so they are beneficial to other cavity nesting birds. When we make birdhouses, we are basically making a space for a cavity nesting bird. ( You can learn now to make birdhouses in our how-to make a birdhouse video here. )

    I think the best field guide to birds I have is the one by Audobon, below are links to buy the book.

    Do you have Pileated Woodpeckers near you? or other woodpeckers? let us know below:


    Buy the Bird Field Guide from an independent bookstore here

    Buy the Bird Field Guide to Birds from Amazon here.

    Woodpecker photo by DI37

  • Tap Maple Trees to Make Maple Syrup How To – GF Video

    Tapping maple trees to make maple syrup in this DIY video. We tap our Sugar Maple trees to collect sap in preparation for making maple syrup. This is a DIY low tech low volume method of tapping some trees in  your yard or perhaps a neighbor’s field. Several of my neighbor’s have sugar shacks complete with large evaporators and huge piles of firewood, some use traditional sap buckets to collect sap, others use plastic lines and taps.

    For my yard, I went with plastic taps and lines, they are not expensive, and I used the food grade plastic buckets from my homebrew beer kit to collect the sap. After we collected the sap, we boiled it down, and we’ll post a video about that soon.

    The general rule of how many taps to put in a tree, according to the Conn. DEP is 1 tap for a 12″ diameter tree ( 38″ in circumference ), 2 taps for 18″ diameter or larger tree ( 56″ in circumference )

    The holes you drill for the taps should be 1.5″ deep with a 5/16″ bit. If you are tapping trees that were tapped previously, pay attention to the previous tap holes. New taps should be 6″ left or right of an old tap hole, and 12″ above or below the old tap hole.

    Sugar Maple sap needs to be stored at 38F degrees or cooler, ideally you will boil the sap the day you collect it. If the sap has turned milky and foamy, it has gone bad.

    Do you tap sugar maple trees? What are some tips you can share with us below? Thanks for watching!

    Here is the tree identification book we like to use:

    Buy From An Indie Bookstore Here
    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Trimble Overnight Cole Slaw Recipe

    From a GF viewer, an interesting recipe for cole slaw:

    Trimble Over-Night Slaw

    Eric, like I said, this has been a requested side for generations. Now we DO love
    our normal Cole Slaw (being from the South, it’s a MUST have with pulled pork BBQ
    and fried or grilled seafood) but this slaw recipe is GREAT and on a hotdog or as a
    side you can’t beat it. Most of all, it can be put out for hours, then re-refrigerated
    without anyone getting sick like from mayo or salad dressing slaws.
    This is a shredded slaw, not chopped and is crisp and sweet with a tang to it.
    Keeps for a week!!!

    Trimble Over-Night Slaw

    1 large head of cabbage
    1 large onion
    1 large green pepper
    1 cup white sugar
    3/4 cup vegetable oil
    1 cup cider vinegar
    1 teaspoon dry mustard
    1 teaspoon celery seed
    1 tablespoon salt

    Shred cabbage into a large bowl. De-seed/core green pepper and peel onion, then
    THINLY slice in strips on top of cabbage in bowl. Sprinkle sugar over top of
    ingredients in bowl. DO NOT STIR!!!

    In a small pot, mix and bring to a boil the oil, vinegar and dry ingredients. Remove
    from heat and while still hot pour over ingredients in bowl, Again, DO NOT STIR!!!

    Cover and place in fridge for at least 12 hours, THEN stir!!! Either serve then or like
    us, let it sit back in the fridge another few hours. It just gets better with time.

    NOTE:  To make this slaw different, we sometimes use a small head of red cabbage
    and a medium head regular, and/or use two medium onions (red and white) and/or even
    use orange, red, yellow and brown peppers. This is all for looks and a variance in taste,
    but it IS impressive if you take it to a pot luck. Try it first with the original recipe before
    you go crazy!!! : )

    photo by alvimann

  • Chocolate Cake & Truck Repair GF Radio

    The 5 minute chocolate mug cake recipe video how to starts off the show, as Eric and Mike discuss making the 5 min microwave cake. Eric fixed the posted recipe, hoping no one actually put 2 tablespoons of salt in the cake. Katja from Holland tells us that the Dutch use butter, not oil in their baking, and has some suggestions for making  grown-up version of the cake with espresso powder, orange liqueur, or rum. yum…

    but its the ubiquitous fork in the chocolate cake recipe video that caught one viewer’s eye, and we learn Eric may have valuable silverware in the drawer. That’s not just a for, it’s a “Kirk Repousse Sterling Silver fork” and it may be worth some cash. wow.

    we talk about the overnight cole slaw recipe, here is the link to the recipe

    Eric’s Ford F150 has a bunch of error codes from his code reader, the one that is of the most concern is the 513 PCM Int Volt Failure. Here is the full list of KOEO codes:

    117 Eng Coolant Temp Sensor below minimum voltage
    126 MAP sensor pressure above or below normal
    122 Throttle Position Sensor – replaced this one –
    112 Air Charge Temp Sensor below minimum voltage
    327 EGR valve position circuit below minimum voltage

    513 PCM Int Volt Failure
    553 Thermactor Air Diverter Solenoid circuit fault
    552 Air Management Circuit 1 failure
    565 Canister Purge Solenoid circuit fault
    556 Fuel Pump relay primary circuit fault
    558 EGR valve regulator solenoid circuit fault

    Computer Geek talk is next with a warning to Mac OSX users of a actual Apple virus, here is the article.

    Hotels and other businesses who allow you to use their wifi may be inserting ads in to the web pages you browse, Mike and Eric talk the ethics of such doings, here is the article this is based on.

    We move on to viewer mail and great note from Lauren, here is her blog, Plenty Of Words For You.

    photo by jusben

  • Labrador Charlie Pup In The Tub

    We have a spring in back of the house that overflows into an old clawfoot tub, and after a hike in the woods, Charlie pup runs ahead on the trail and jumps in to this tub. She loves it. What does your pup do like this?

     

  • 5 Minute Chocolate Cake In A Mug Recipe : GF video

    5 Min chocolate cake mug cake is a simple easy recipe to make quick chocolate cake in your microwave. mix the chocolate cake recipe, microwave for 2 minutes, and in 2 minutes you have chocolate cake.

    Here is the 5 minute chocolate cake recipe:

    3 TBSP of vegetable oil

    1 egg

    3 TBSP milk, or water – milk is better

    2 TBSP sugar

    3 TBSP flour

    2 TBSP cocoa

    2-3 TBSP chocolate chips

    Pinch of salt

    Dash of vanilla

    In a pyrex 2 cup container or microwave proof mug, mix the wet ingredients together, then add the dry ingredients to the wet batter. Mix together, but don’t whip it, just mix it.

    Place in a microwave on High for 2 minutes. Turn the cake out onto a plate, or if its in a mug, you can dust with powdered sugar. Let it cool a bit before eating, its hot.

    Do you have a 5 minute microwave cake recipe? let us know below:

  • Mike’s Road Trips GF Radio

    Mike tell us about his recent road trips to gaming conventions and Florida. then there’s some viewer mail.

     

    photo by chelle

  • What is a colonoscopy? : GF Radio

    What is a colonoscopy? how does a colonoscopy work? What’s it like and why you should have one today on GardenFork Radio. Rick, Mike, and Eric talk about their colonoscopy experiences and how its not that big of a deal.

  • How To Poach Eggs GF.TV

    Learn here how to poach eggs with Eric’s simple poached egg recipe. Poaching eggs is a healthy way to cook eggs with no oil, you cook the eggs in water, hence the name, poached eggs.

    A properly cooked poached egg has a runny yolk, i think, but not too runny. You have to experiment with the timing to get the perfect poached egg. There are all sorts of  methods to poach an egg, but I think the method we show you in our poached egg video works best. Its not a lot of work, you don’t have to have a fancy egg poacher pan, and it works.

    Poached eggs are great on toast, but people also poached eggs for fancy dished like Eggs Benedict, and the Middle Eastern dish Shakshouka, in which eggs are poached in a tomato sauce. I’ve seen a few different versions of this, and its on the to do list in the GardenFork kitchen.

    Eggs in general are just plain healthy for you. They are a great source of protein, they keep for a long time in your fridge, and they cook up easy. Eggs contain all the amino acids you need, and are a good brain food. Pasture or free range eggs, with the chickens being the free-er the better, are the best eggs to get, i think.

    How do you poach eggs? let us know below:

  • Honeycomb Surprise during beehive inspection

    pulling up the super

    With spring coming early, we got to do our first inspection of the beehives last weekend. All our hives made it through the winter, which, despite the warm weather, is still a roll of the dice each year.

    Hive #1 was re-queened twice last year; the hive never thrived, and I wondered whether it would make it through the winter. It did, thankfully. We opened this beehive up and found the bees to be good, crawling all over the sugar cakes we fed them through the winter – see our winter bee feeding video here.

    After removing the sugarcakes, I started to take off the supers, and when pulling the second super, I felt the telltale rubber band pull of burr comb.

    Burr comb is honeycomb where you don’t want honeycomb to be. Honeybees don’t like open space, they will fill any void with honeycomb.

    What I had forgotten last summer when we re-queened was I neglected to remove the queen cage when we put the 2nd new queen in the hive. The queen is in a small cage to introduce her slowly to the hive, and you have to remove one of the frames of the hive to fit the cage in temporarily.

    comb full of honey

    So I forgot to remove the queen cage after the queen was released by the workers, and the honeybees filled up that open space with a huge piece of honeycomb. Which just happen to be full of honey from last fall when we found it. We removed the honeycomb, put in a frame, and put the hive back together with a sugar feeder on top for the early spring.

    The honeycomb tasted great, we brought it to our friends house for dinner.

    you can see the space the comb filled in the lower super

  • Tornado Safe Rooms, Tornadoes, & Storm Chasers GF Radio

    Tyler joins us to talk about building tornado safe room or tornado shelter, his sister built a tornado safe room in the floor of her garage, and safe rooms were discussed at ChaserCon. Safe rooms can be pre-fab or built on site out of concrete or steel or a combination of rebar, cement, and cinderblocks. Storm Chasing comes next, is storm chasing really like how it looks on the cable shows? Tyler talks about what its like to chase storms and the science behind what causes tornadoes, how to tornadoes form?

    Car repair comes next, Tyler is having some car repair issues with his Jeep, we talk about what a crankshaft is, a harmonic balancer, and flywheel do.

    We talk about beekeeping and Tyler’s beginning beekeeping experiences, Eric and Tyler agree that using medium supers, not the large deeps, are the best way to keep bees. Siting your bees is an issue, as you have to keep in mind how you are going to get to your honeybees in winter and summer, you can’t always just drive your truck right up to them, think about where they are going to live.

    If you want to listen to our Beekeeping for Beginners Questions & Answers shows, click here.

    Car and Truck safety on the highway rounds out the show, a viewer mail asks out loud what will driving be like in 20 years?

    photo by cohdra

  • Aquaponics 4 – Grow Beds & Siphons

    aquaponics 4 from rick kennerly on Vimeo.

    update 4 on the aquaponics build out

  • Plywood Boat Video by Students in Denmark

    I received this email today;

    We are a group of design students interested in recording and documenting processes involved with boat building. We modeled our first boat on the one in your video, and would like to know what you thought! Have you changed your boat in any way since you first made it? Do you have any advice for us on how we could improve it? Please could you reply to us as soon as you can, looking forward to your response!

    How cool is that? Wow I am flattered. They took the GF Plywood Boat Plan Video and made it their own.

    I have to make some modifications to the original How to make a Plywood Boat ,

    1. Let the caulk cure more for the clear plastic window in the bottom of the boat

    2. Use finish nails ( the kind with a small nail head ) to put the boat together and then seal all joints with fiberglass tape and resin.

    This is neat. Thanks to  Jeak (Jordi, Ellie, Alex and Kate) !