GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: “urban homesteading”

  • Simple Maple Syrup Evaporator : GF Video

    Simple Maple Syrup Evaporator : GF Video

    Learn how to make maple syrup with this simple maple syrup evaporator. I’ll show you how to tap and collect sap from your sugar maples and then boil down the sap. This setup uses propane and 2 outdoor propane stoves.

    We have used several methods to make maple syrup, watch all our maple syrup videos here and we have built a DIY maple syrup evaporator out of a file cabinet.

    What’s great about this simple maple syrup evaporator rig is you can walk away from it. You don’t have to watch it constantly. I have mine outside the kitchen, and every 15 min or so I go out and check it.

    maple-syrup-updateI found a used large stainless steel pot that was probably used to boil clams, and I found a large shallow stainless steel bowl at the dollar store. The idea behind this DIY maple syrup evaporator is the cold sugar maple sap is brought up to a boil in the first large pot, and then it is ladled into the shallow finishing pan to be boiled down into maple syrup.
    Sugar Maple Sap becomes maple syrup when the sap reaches 7.5 degrees F above the local boiling point. Boil a small pan of water on  your stove and when it boils, measure the temperature with your digital thermometer. Add 7.5 degrees to that temp – at our house the boil happens at 210F – and when the sap reaches that temperature, it is now syrup. Quickly turn off the heat on the finishing pan burner, and strain the syrup in to jars. If you are up to it, you can let the sap boil to a slightly higher temperature for a slightly darker syrup – be careful not to burn the finishing pan.

    Parts You Need For The Simple Maple Syrup Evaporator

    digital_thermometerI strongly suggest buying a digital kitchen thermometer, old style candy thermometers are hard to use with this setup.

    If you see your finishing pan foaming big time, you probably have syrup, and probably the temperature is above the ideal, turn off the propane and pour off the syrup.

    The drawback of this system is that it uses quite a bit of propane, not the best use of what you’ve got. The plan is to build a wood fired evaporator next year. I have a ton of white pine from the trees we dropped that would fire a sugar shack nicely.

     

    make maple syrup
    Watch all our Maple Syrup How To Videos here.

    Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

    Questions? Comments? let us know below:

  • Dandelion Greens & Bacon Salad Recipe : GF Video

    Dandelion Greens & Bacon Salad Recipe : GF Video

    What do you with dandelion greens? You make a salad of course. Watch our video to find out how to identify and forage for dandelion in your yard, and make a great salad. If you are looking for edible plants in your yard, make sure the yard hasn’t been treated with herbicides or other things that are bad for you to ingest. Check out our other foraging videos here.

    How To Find and Prepare Dandelion Greens

    Wild Greens are abundant if you live in an area with grassy weedy places. They grow, we eat them. Things like mustard grow wild, wild onions, dandelion, purslane, burdock, all sorts. What I like about dandelion is it is ubiquitous and abundant, and it grows all summer. It is said that the dandelion greens are more bitter after the dandelion flower have bloomed, but my personal experience has been mixed. It is true the older the leaf, the more bitter it will be.

    I do suggest buying at least one foraging plant identification book, I’m a big fan of Leda Meredith’s Foraging Books, she also has regional foraging books out as well. A second book you might consider is Joy Of Foraging.

    Dandelion Greens

    Follow this simple dandelion greens recipe, and all will be great. It uses items you probably have in your fridge.

    Dandelion Salad Recipe  makes 2 salads

    1 bunch of dandelion, about a large handful, tap root and flower stems removed, washed and dried.

    2 strips of thick cut bacon

    balsamic vinegar

    2 eggs, poached for 3 minutes

    1 avocado

    Cook the bacon to crisp

    While the bacon is cooking arrange the dandelion in two salad bowls or plates.

    Cut the avocado in half, core and add to the bowls

    Add the poached egg on top of the greens,

    Cut the bacon into small pieces, spread over the salad

    Pour about a half teaspoon of the bacon grease from the pan over each bowl.

    Serve as soon as possible.

    Now on to foraging for Lambsquarters!

    Wild and Urban Foraging for Lambsquarters : GF Video

     

  • Oyster Mushroom Hunting – GF Video

    Oyster Mushroom Hunting – GF Video

    Here’s a mushroom hunting video about some really amazing oyster mushrooms we found growing along the side of the road right near our house

    A few things to keep in mind when you’re going mushroom hunting:

    • bring along several identification books we like a couple that we listed at the end of the video here
    • learn from someone who already knows what they’re doing take a class or ask if you can tagalong with someone who is a mushroom expert
    • Join your local mycological society, in other words your local mushroom group. You can learn a lot from these people and they might even take you long to show you some really cool spots to go mushroom hunting.

    When you find some mushrooms you want to harvest, don’t take all of them. Leave one third of the mushrooms there so the mushrooms can propagate they will release their spores and they will grow more mushrooms that you would go in harvest.
    After a while you’ll be able to recognize some of the common edible mushrooms in your area but bring along several mushroom identification books anyway. I really like the Audubon guide and there are also several regional guides. We  have a few for the Northeast United States or New England listed those below.

    Avoid mushrooms that have slugs or bugs in them, yes they are a protein, but many don’t taste that great. You can wash mushrooms, but they usually only need to  be brushed off. You can use a towel, I’ve seen mushroom brushes that look like a whisk broom/porcupine thing. So again, if you’re not quite sure don’t eat it or check with your friend who is an expert OK?

    Want to grow mushrooms, watch this vid: How To Grow Mushrooms From Plug Spawn – GF Video

    Here are more mushroom hunting and mushroom identification videos for your here on GardenFork:


    Oyster Mushroom Identification

    cook-mushrooms-play
    How To Cook Mushrooms

    oyster-mushroom-hunting-2
    Wild Mushrooom Risotto Recipe

    Click here to see our other mushroom identification posts

    Cross check the mushrooms you find with several sources, books are best, I think. I use several books for identifying mushrooms , below are the mushroom identification books I recommend:


    Click Here To Buy From IndieBound
    Click Here To Buy From Amazon


    Click Here To Buy From IndieBound
    Click Here To Buy From Amazon

  • DIY Rain Barrel System – GF Video

    DIY Rain Barrel System – GF Video

    Easy Rain Barrel System we built with spare lumber and trash cans and some PVC. What I like about this rain barrel system is that you don’t have to go buy or find some rain barrels, you just go to the hardware store and buy some garbage cans. Done.

    How to build a rain barrel system

    Below is a slide show of photos I took while we assembled the rain barrels. The exact dimensions of your project will vary, depending on the size of your trash cans and how high up in the air you want to put your system.

    Important: Be sure to screen the slot where the downspout enters the barrel or use mosquito dunks to control mosquito breeding.

    A list of the items used:

    Gutter Downspout Diverter, available here: http://amzn.to/1mf6ENG

    • 2″ male and female electrical PVC connectors to attach the PVC drain pipe to the trash cans
    • 2″ PVC plumbing pipe to connect the rain barrels to the garden hose spigot. The length of pipe you need depends on your trash cans and the stand you build.
    • Two 2″ PVC 90 degree elbows
    • One 2″ PVC T connector
    • One 2″ PVC 30 degree elbow
    • Assorted PVC adapters to fit the garden hose spigot to the end of the PVC pipe
    • One each 3″ male and female electrical PVC connectors for overflow pipe
    • One 3″ PVC street elbow for overflow
    • Various 3″ PVC elbows to divert overflow to where you want it to drain.
    • Sections of downspout pipe to connect downspout diverter to your rain barrel system
    • Quality silicone bathtub caulk

    We built the stand for the rain barrels out of scrap lumber. Be sure to build the stand to support a heavy load, and do not site the rain barrels where they could fall over, they are heavy! If the stand is sitting on soft earth, put bricks or pavers underneath the legs of the stand.

    The top of the stand has a gap in the middle of it for the pipe that comes out of each rain barrel, plan for this ahead of time.

    Our overflow pipe is 3″, which might be overkill for some designs. This system takes in water from a large flat roof, and in a hard downpour, a smaller overflow pipe would be overwhelmed, we believe. If you are doing rainwater collection from a smaller roof, your overflow pipe could be smaller.

     

  • Foraging Blogs Better Than GardenFork

    Foraging Blogs Better Than GardenFork

    On Twitter, Alexa asked me and a few foraging experts about identifying Mustard Garlic, and at the same time, she introduced me to 4 foragers who have websites and books on foraging.

    4-foragersFull Disclosure: I am not the high priest expert on foraging or edible plants. Like most things, I know enough to be dangerous. But Alexa was nice enough to include me in her question.

    Now that my place on the foraging scale is clear, here is a GardenFork video we did on foraging Garlic Mustard and Stinging Nettles to make a great Garlic Mustard Nettles pesto recipe.

    This is what I love about creating GardenFork – people who I’ve met introduce me to new people doing cool stuff. In no particular order here are 4 foraging wild food people who I now read thanks to Alexa, please check out their sites and social media feeds:

    Tama Matsuoka Wong, @meadowsandmore,  is a self-described weed eater, and is a TEDx speaker. She partners with Chef Eddy Leroux on their site, Meadows and More. They also both work with Restaurant Daniel in NYC. Tama and Eddy have published Forage Flavor, Finding Fabulous Ingredients In Your Backyard or Farmer’s Market.

    Becky Lerner, @UrbanForager, has a blog on Urban Foraging: Wild Plants for Food, Medicine, and More in Portland, Oregon. Becky has published Dandelion Hunter: Foraging the Urban Wilderness. I like what Rolling Stone wrote about Rebecca and her book:

    If and when the apocalypse arrives, you’ll want Rebecca Lerner by your side.

    Go check out her blog and book and ask about the 9 month wilderness survival program she took.

    Langdon Cook, @langdoncook, whose blog is Fat Of The Land, Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, also has a book of the same name. His expertise is in wild foods and the outdoors. Langdon hosts foraging workshops like many do, but he teaches about foraging for shellfish, which never crossed my mind before.

    This being one of those head-slap moments, because I go surfcasting on the Rockaways, and I bet there are shellfish there too. ( Here’s a video we did on Surfcasting )

    Karen Monger, @the3foragers, and her family go foraging, and document their experiences on their blog, The 3 Foragers. Karen lives in Southern Connecticut, I live in Northwestern Connecticut, so we come across many of the same plants. We are lucky to have an abundance of mushrooms at certain times of the year. (Last fall we had a ton of oyster mushrooms in our area, here’s a video we did on them.) I like the posts Karen has put together about foraging for invasives that are prevalent in our area. We’ll be doing a video about one of them, Japanese Knotweed.

    Get their books on Indiebound:
    Foraged Flavor from IndieBound
    Dandelion Hunter from IndieBound
    Fat Of The Land from IndieBound

  • Maple Sap Collection Tips, Backyard Maple Syrup Project GF Video

    Maple Sap Collection Tips, Backyard Maple Syrup Project GF Video

    Halfway through collecting maple sap to make maple syrup, I made this video on tips on tapping maple trees and how to collect sap to make maple syrup. Shot on the iPhone, it looks pretty good.

    I use tree saver plastic taps and plastic lines to collect sap, i’m finding that buckets at each tree work pretty well. I have one large barrel that collects from two trees, and its kind of a pain to get the sap out. The benefit is if the sugar maple sap runs really well, the bucket can handle the sap. One time my smaller 5 gal buckets overflowed.

    There has been some discussion on how much sugar gets trapped in the ice that we remove from the sap buckets. My neighbors, old time maple syrup experts, remove the ice from their maple sap buckets. But then I was asked how much sugar is lost with the ice, and I don’t know. The questioner brought up Popsicles, and the fact that they are made with sugar that seems to freeze with the ice.

    maple-syrup-update

    It helps when hauling buckets of sap to have them only half full, its easier on your back and you splash a lot less. I store our sap in a big new trash can on the shady side of the house that has been surrounded with snow to keep the sap cool.

    Check out all of our how to make maple syrup videos here

    Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

    Let us know  your questions or comments below:

  • DIY tapping maple trees for maple syrup – GF Video

    DIY tapping maple trees for maple syrup – GF Video

    Tapping sugar maple trees to make maple syrup is a big tradition in my part of Connecticut, so I wanted to show you how to tap maple trees to get maple sap to make maple syrup. We use plastic taps and tubing that are connected to buckets at the base of each tree. The advantage of using individual buckets is that some of the water in the sap will freeze in the collection bucket. The whole goal of boiling sap in an evaporator is to remove the water from the maple sap, so removing some of the water as ice is a super simple way to reduce your boiling time.

    Tubing Connector for tapping sugar maples
    Tubing Connector for tapping sugar maples

    We buy our taps and tubing from Leader Evaporator. The smallest length the tubing comes in is 500′, but don’t fret, its quite inexpensive, about $60 for that much tubing. To buy a lesser amount of tubing locally would cost just as much. We use Tree Saver taps. Buy a bunch of their tubing connectors too, you will need them to tie several taps into one bucket.

    In a future sugar maple tree tap video, we’ll connect several trees into one large collection barrel.

    Check your buckets every morning, scoop out the ice with a sieve, and then store the sap in a large barrel that is in a cold place packed with snow. The sap has to stay cold or it will spoil. You can tell if you sap has gone bad if it has a milky color to it.

    We have a bunch of maple syrup making videos, including how to boil down your sap into maple syrup, click here to watch our maple syrup videos

    Here is a great PDF from the Univ of Maine on how to tap trees and boil sap

    Have any questions or comments? Please post them below:

  • How To Cook Mushrooms : GF Video

    How To Cook Mushrooms : GF Video

    Learn how to cook mushrooms in our latest foraging – mushroom identification video. We made a oyster mushroom identification video, and people asked us to show how to cook mushrooms, so here is our mushroom cooking video!

    The oyster mushrooms we use here were cultivated mushrooms, and you can grow your own mushrooms, here’s post about growing mushrooms here, but we bought these at the food coop. In the growing season you can go mushroom hunting, but be sure to learn from an experience mushroom foraging person, and bring your mushroom identification books with you. Below are a few of the mushroom books we like and use.

    To clean mushrooms, I just brush them off with a towel, you can also wash them, but its not always necessary, I feel, but you should do what you want, because you’re going to do that anyway…
    how-to-cook-mushrooms-2

    Butter, Salt, & Pepper are the key ingredients in this simple sauted mushroom recipe, and the cast iron pan is great for cooking mushrooms, holds heat nicely and its evenly distributed too.

    You can store mushrooms in your fridge or a cool basement, I keep them in a paper bag that’s not closed tight. Plastic bags will cause the mushrooms to go bad quickly, I think. Also when you are foraging for mushrooms, bring along a few paper bags, its the best way to store them while you hike around, IMHO.

    Below is my favorite book I use for mushroom identification, let me know any other suggestions you have in the comments below:


    Click To Buy From An Independent Bookstore

  • Oyster Mushroom Identification, Foraging, Hunting – GF Video

    Oyster Mushroom Identification, Foraging, Hunting – GF Video

    Foraging for Mushrooms this fall, I found a bunch of Oyster Mushrooms, and made this Mushroom Identification Video. Oyster Mushrooms are edible and delicious. They grow on dead or dying trees. The trees can be standing or on their side. I’ve found oyster mushrooms growing out of the ends of cut logs, and the stumps of dead trees.

    Oyster mushrooms grow in clusters, and are usually stacked on top of each other, the individual mushrooms are kidney shape. It has gills and doesn’t have much of a stem. Oyster mushrooms are white to tan colored, they are usually darker in color later in the season. The mushrooms in this video were harvested in late November.

    When harvesting, I always leave some mushrooms on the tree to allow the mother plant to spread spores to create more mushrooms. So don’t strip a tree of all its mushrooms, you may get a second growth of mushrooms on the same tree, so check back a week later, or after a rain.

    Be sure to be very sure what you are doing when foraging for mushrooms! Learn from someone who is a practiced mushroom hunter, or consider taking a class. Do a web search for your state or county or city and “mycological society” and you may find a group offering classes. Also check nearby nature centers.

    Click here to see our other mushroom identification posts

    Cross check the mushrooms you find with several sources, books are best, I think. I use several books for identifying mushrooms , below are the mushroom identification books I recommend:


    Click Here To Buy From IndieBound
    Click Here To Buy From Amazon


    Click Here To Buy From IndieBound
    Click Here To Buy From Amazon

  • Foraging: Staghorn Sumac GF Video

    Foraging: Staghorn Sumac GF Video

    Part of our Foraging and Urban Homesteading Video Series, we show you how to forage for foods in your backyard. This foraging video is about the Staghorn Sumac and the tea or sumac-ade you can make from the seedhead of a sumac tree.

    Staghorn Sumac

    I remembered this drink you can make from a report I did in 6th grade, it was a cookbook of sorts of Native American foods, I think my teacher was underwhelmed by report I did, but this must have had an influence on me, in some subtle way.

    In addition to the tea you can make from foraged sumac, the sumac seed pods are used in middle eastern cooking. The seeds are ground and used as a spice powder, added to dishes such as hummus and salads. neat!

    According to Wikipedia, the center stem of the sumac was also used by native americans as pipe stems. Sumac also had medicinal uses in Medieval times.

    Sumacs grow along forest and field edges, fence rows and the sides of the road. They are called a pioneer plant, they are one of the first bush plants to grow where a field is turning into a forest, or where the soil has been disturbed.

    Their leaves are an easy way to identify the plant, especially in the fall, as they have a great red-yellow color to them.

    Be sure to know the difference between Staghorn Sumac and Poison Sumac. The names of the plants are similar, but the plants do look quite a bit different. Staghorn sumac has a very unique upright seed head, usually red in color. Poison Sumac looks much more like poison ivy, and its seeds hang downward.

    Poison Sumac looks like Poison Ivy – USDA photo

    What can you add to our knowledge of Staghorn Sumac and foraging? Let us know below:

  • How to make sausage at The Meat Hook & The Brooklyn Kitchen

    How to make sausage at The Meat Hook & The Brooklyn Kitchen

    The latest project in my head is to make and cure home made sausage. I signed up for a how to make sausage class at The Brooklyn Kitchen taught by Ben Turley, an owner of The Meat Hook who shares space with The Brooklyn Kitchen to learn phase one: how to make fresh sausage at home.

    FYI, we have a bunch of how to cook videos here if you’d care to check them out.

    Pork Shoulder is best for sausage.

    I’ve never taken a cooking class before, and was kinda ambivalent the day of the class, but I knew it would be good when I showed up at the classroom and was handed a cold beer by Valerie, who assisted Ben with the class.

    Valerie offers advice on chopping herbs

    Rather than one of those cooking classes where you just sit there and watch; we were going to learn how to make sausage by making sausage, guided by Valerie and Ben.

    Ben first gave a short talk, and what stuck in my head was his goal of transparency in the food they sell, and their recipes. The sausages were to make were two types of sausage they sell at the Meat Hook, and we had in our hands the actual recipes they use to make them.

    Eric mixes spices into sausage meat

    The common wisdom is when many chefs publish their recipe for a signature dish in a magazine, they leave out crucial details. Ben didn’t leave out any details. He laid out exactly how to make good tasting sausage.

    The key to making homemade sausage is the ratio of salt and spices to fat and protein, and Ben wrote it all out for us in grams. How cool is that?

    We then broke into two teams and prepared two different sausages, while Valerie and Ben offered suggestions and guidance.

    A few key things I learned about making sausage:

    • Pork Shoulder is best, with  30% fat to 70% protein ratio.
    • Have the butcher grind the meat for you with a 3/16 diameter grind
    • Mixing the meat and spices-salt together to the right consistency
    • Cook a small piece of the mixed sausage before stuffing it into casings, do a taste test.
    • Refrigerate sausage overnight before cooking, don’t stuff and cook right away.

    To make sure the meat and ingredients have been mixed properly, and the salt has been kneaded into the meat, make a thin patty of the sausage meat, put it in your palm, and turn your palm upside down. Then count to 5. If the patty is still stuck to your upside down palm when you get to 5, the meat is mixed properly.

    Each person got to take home two sausages from the class project. The next day they tasted amazing.

    Home Made Sausage. how cool is that?

    cooking videos
    Watch Our Cooking Videos here

    We’ll be making a how to make sausage video soon. You can sign up for cooking classes at the Brooklyn Kitchen here.

    Do you make sausage homemade? Any suggestions or tips? Let us know below:

  • Foraging for Edible Plants: Purslane GF Video

    Foraging for Edible Plants: Purslane GF Video

    Learn how to forage for edible wild greens and identify edible plants in this Foraging for Purslane video. Edible plants like Purslane are sometimes considered weeds, but you can eat them, watch and learn here in this GardenFork foraging video.


    Purslane grows all over the place, ( it grows well in compacted and dry soils ) so all you urban homesteaders rejoice, here’s a free salad green that grows like a weed. Purslane is considered a succulent, it kinda looks like the leaves of a jade plant, that whole family of plants. We have purslane volunteering in our garden, so if I run across it, I usually just let it grow and harvest it before it takes over whatever plants are next to it.

    From the Purslane Wikipedia entry, I learned a lot about purslane. Purslane is eaten all over the world, just not here in the states. The leaves and stem are edible, not sure about the taproot. It is eaten raw and cooked, and it has a ‘mucilangious quality’ it is also cooked into soups and stews and can thicken dishes.

    Greeks fry the leaves with sage, in Turkey it is cooked like spinach, and again, here, we pull it out as a weed.

    What I found cool is that it has high levels of Omega 3 fatty acids, which few plants have. One usually has to eat fish to get high omega 3 levels. This edible wild green also has antioxidant properties.

    Do you eat purslane? what is your favorite wild edible green?

     

  • Surfcasting with Lures How-to GF TV Video

    Surfcasting with Lures How-to GF TV Video

    Surfcasting, saltwater fishing from shore, is easy to do, and a great way to learn how to catch fish. In this how-to video we use lures at the beach to fish for striped bass and bluefish. Ocean fishing like this is not complicated, and i’m all about simple is good.

    We went surfcasting at Fort Tilden Park, on the border of Queens & Brooklyn in New York City; its pretty wild to be in the city, yet on the ocean, weird dichotomy there between the urban business and the calm of the ocean surf.


    A couple of things I learned about ocean fishing on this trip:

    • Bring along water friendly shoes like those sandles with big holes in them, or don’t wear shoes at all if its warm enough
    • Apply sunblock, the bigger the SPF number the better. Even if its cloudy, you should protect your skin.
    • Make sure you have the proper permits and are allowed to be fishing where you are fishing. I’m big on following the rules, that’s why they are there.
    • Pay attention to bag limits and eating limits. Around NYC, the fish have accumulated some chemicals in their flesh that you don’t want to eat large amounts of.
    • Buy used surfcasting gear on craigslist, our suggestion is 10- 12′ lightweight rod and spinning reel. I used braided line for the first time in this video and it worked well.

    surfcasting-with-lures-how-to

     

    A big thank you to my friend Brian and his dad Jack.

    We’ll do more fishing videos in the near future, i’m all about eating food that is locally harvested. What are your surfcasting tips? Let us know below:

     

  • Chainsaw Wont Start – Chain Saw Repair : GF Video

    Chainsaw Wont Start – Chain Saw Repair : GF Video

    Chainsaw wont start? Wondering how to fix a chainsaw and the chainsaw to start? Watch our how to fix a chainsaw video and you will be on your way. Chainsaw repair is not hard, and if you’re ready to go out in the yard and cut down some trees, your chainsaw has probably been sitting in the shop all winter. Follow these simple chainsaw tune up steps, and you will have your chainsaw running in a few minutes.

    We have to talk about chainsaw safety here as well. Chainsaws are the most dangerous tool a homeowner can own without a license. I have a few friends with scars from using chainsaws improperly. Chainsaw chaps, a helmet, face shield, eye protection, steel toed boots are all mush-haves for safety.

    Sharp chainsaw chains is key in cutting up trees and cutting firewood, you can sharpen your own chainsaw chains, but I suggest you have them done at your local small engine repair shop, they have the right equipment to set the correct cutting angle, a hand file can’t do that.

    There’s more tree felling in my future, we have a few white pines on our property that need to come down, lest they come down on our house or garage, one of them is already splitting down the trunk, so we need to deal with that one soon.

     Watch all our how to cut down a tree chainsaw videos here

  • Amaranth Urban Foraging Edible Green

    Amaranth Urban Foraging Edible Green

    Urban Foraging while walking the Labs, I ran across a familiar sight in urban areas, an edible green, a type of amaranth that farmers refer to as pigweed.

    Amaranth comes in several versions, the one pictured here is not one of the more floral ones, but it is an urban edible green that you’ll see in tree pits , parks, and weedy lots and roadsides.

    20120607-133407.jpg
    The more visually striking amaranth varieties have names like Golden or Elephant. Golden Amaranth has a huge head of small flowers that lean over from the top of a tall stalk. Elephant Amaranth is purple pink and looks like an elephant trunk.

    You can eat the leaves of all these amaranth varieties, and harvest the seed/grain of those that have substantial flower heads. The weedy version I found in the city doesn’t have much of a flower.

    You can eat the leaves raw, but most cultures cook the leaves. In New York I’ve heard amaranth also called calaloo, which in Jamiaca is the name of the plant and the name of a dish made with amaranth.

    Depending on who you ask, amaranth is a weed or a healthy source of vitamins. Pigweed amaranth fills up farmer’s fields yet cooks use amaranth.

    Do you grow or cook with amaranth? Let us know below:

  • Foraging: Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe : GF Video

    Foraging: Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe : GF Video

    Foraging was on our minds this weekend, seeing some edible wild plants in our yard, after listening to this NPR story on eating and cooking wild foods like edible Garlic Mustard and Nettles.

    Yes, you can eat nettles, despite the fact that the stems of the nettle plant have tiny barbs that sting if you grab Nettles without gloves. The secret is blanching before eating the nettles.

    Garlic Mustard is an edible wild green, its leaves have hint of Garlic taste, though the mustard leaf taste is more prominent. Garlic Mustard is a non-native invasive plant that crowds out woodland native flowers like trilliums, bloodroot, etc. When harvesting Garlic Mustard, be sure to remove the entire root base, so it doesn’t grow back.

    Our Wild Edible Plant Pesto Recipe made with Stinging Nettles and Garlic Mustard is inspired by an NPR interview of Leah Lizarondo whose food blog is Brazen Kitchen. A big thank you to Larkin Page-Jacobs of NPR and Leah.

    Please tell us about your foraging recipes and tips below the recipe, thanks.

    Foraging Videos & Edible Plant Identification:

    Here are other plant identification foraging videos we have done:

     Dandelion, How to find, forage, and cook Dandelion Video

     

    Lambsquarter, Foraging and Cooking Lambsquarter Video

    Click for photos of Garlic Mustard and Stinging Nettles for plant identification.

     

    Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe
    Recipe Type: pesto
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 2 cups
    A simple pesto recipe made from foraged edible plants, Garlic Mustard, Stinging Nettles and Dandelion
    Ingredients
    • 1 cup Blanched Nettles
    • 3 cups Garlic Mustard Leaves
    • 1 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese, grated
    • 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    • 1 cup Dandelion Leaves ( optional )
    • 1/2 lemon
    • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
    • 1 cup toasted walnuts
    • 2 medium cloves garlic
    Instructions
    1. Wash all greens in a salad spinner – wear gloves when handling stinging nettles.
    2. Take 2 large handfuls of nettles – wear gloves! and blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain in a colander.
    3. Grate 1 cup of cheese using the large holes on a box grater, don\\\\\\\’t buy the pre-grated cheese, it tastes awful.
    4. Toast the walnuts in a fry pan on the stove, keep an eye on them, the burn easily.
    5. Place the greens, walnuts, cheese, garlic in a food processor, pour olive oil over the ingredients in the food processor.
    6. Add lemon zest and the juice from half a lemon.
    7. Turn on the food processor and watch the fun, you want the greens to become a roughly chopped paste, but not turn to mush.
    8. Serve this over pasta ( whole wheat pasta goes well with these flavors ) or in white bean soup, or on bread, its great.

     

     

     

  • Build a simple ledge nest birdhouse GF.TV video

    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

    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