Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2016 i Grit

FEATURED COMMENT “This year I got the idea to plant broccoli in October in big containers and just let the head flower and go to seed. Believe it or not, my bees got a lot of pollen from a dozen or so broccoli plants all throughout the winter. Broccoli loves the cold season, and since our winter was so mild here in California, they were out foraging almost every day.” — Barbm on “6 Ways Everyone Can Help the Bees” Grit Bloggers We invite homesteaders, cooks, and do-it-yourselfers to join the Grit online community and become a Grit blogger. From time to time, we’ll have contests for our existing bloggers, like in July when two winners each won $100 cash plus an ECHO CS-590 TimberWolf chainsaw valued at $399.99. Email…

WILL AND BECKY ROBERTS, current owners of Rawhide Ridge Farm in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, initially met at a local cattle show at the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex in Chatham. Becky, who currently works as an assistant principal at the Pittsylvania Career and Technical Center, was helping several students show livestock, and Will was a volunteer. While it took them awhile to start dating, they quickly discovered they shared a deep love of agriculture and helping others. Like many young farmers, early on Will and Becky struggled with how to make farming pay, particularly with increasing costs in family healthcare. For some time to come, Will says he sees the couple having one spouse working on-farm and one spouse working off the farm in order to make ends meet. But the…

PEPPERS HAVE BEEN associated with civilization for thousands of years, making them some of the oldest seed food crops domesticated in the New World. After Columbus found them growing in the West Indies, they rapidly circulated the globe and influenced many cuisines. The peppers I am discussing are sweet red peppers that we most commonly see today as the big blocky high-shouldered hybrids. Many people who have not gardened are surprised to learn that red peppers are simply ripe green peppers, which perhaps says more about our disconnection from food than anything else. I was never a big fan of green peppers; I find their taste just a bit too unripe and, well, green. They are a bit better cooked, but there’s no comparison with letting peppers reach their full…

Beginning life as a bone saw in 1830, this device has been powered with compressed air, hydraulic fluid, electricity, 2-stroke engines and even some 4-stroke engines over the years. Today the machine is one of the most-owned outdoor power tools, second only to the lawn mower. Once considered a widow-maker because of its propensity to maim its operator, in the 1960s, the chainsaw came into its own as a farm and ranch tool – still considered dangerous, but safe enough for the general public. Improved safety features and accessories have made the chainsaw ever more popular today. If you fell trees for any reason a few times each year or have serious tree trimming to do, it might just be time to take this power-tool plunge. But with all the…

Does the image of people dining al fresco – with a view of your blooming herb gardens … while savoring meals made with your farm-raised ingredients … while connecting to a quintessential rural experience – bring a smile to your face? What if these folks were paying guests who added income to your farm’s bottom line? If the idea of cultivating some green – as in cash flow – from dining options among the beautiful green surroundings of your farm and fields appeals to you, you’re on the path of a hot culinary trend. According to the National Restaurant Association, which tracks top food trends every year, their 2016 list is dominated by local food and farm-fresh themes, from diners looking for locally sourced and grown meats and produce to…

The arrival of fall sends us farmers scurrying to stockpile supplies for the coming Long Cold. I like to think of us as large and mostly hairless squirrels. I always admired the story of Noah. Not so much for Noah’s ark-building skills, but because he was able to lay in enough forage to feed all those huge herbivores during the months they would spend in his floating barn. Thanks to the advent of superhighways and supermarkets, some folks might think preparing for winter means picking up an extra box of DVDs for the kiddies and buying a box of wine for mom and dad. Livestock farmers have a distinctly different perspective when it comes to preparing for winter. When I was a kid growing up on our dairy farm, getting…

Quail Forever is dedicated to bringing the quail species back to full recovery. Quail Forever is the quail conservation division of Pheasants Forever, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to upland habitat conservation. Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have more than 140,000 members and 700 local chapters across the United States and Canada. Chapters are empowered to determine how 100 percent of their locally raised conservation funds are spent – the only national conservation organization that operates through this truly grassroots structure. Since creation in 1982, Pheasants Forever has spent $577 million on 489,000 habitat projects benefiting over 12 million acres nationwide. For more information on bringing back quail in your area, contact your state fish and game commission, or Quail Forever, 1783 Buerkle Circle, St. Paul, MN 55110; call…

Redesigned ‘Mini Loader’ For Deere Garden Tractors “About a year ago I built a mini loader for my Deere 318 garden tractor that was featured in FARM SHOW (Vol. 39, No. 3). It’s designed mainly to move snow and lift heavy objects up into my pickup. The response I got – and am still getting – from readers has been incredible,” says Steve Nichols, Galesburg, Illinois. “I’ve enjoyed helping FARM SHOW readers who want to build their own loaders. I have now made an even better loader for my Deere 445. It’s designed to fit Deere’s 425, 445, and 455 garden tractors and is based on an entirely different design. I call it my ACME Iron Werx Loader. Anyone with good fabricating skills can easily build it. I don’t have…

FISHING IS A FAVORITE HOBBY for rural folks during the summer months – and even the winter months for those up North who enjoy ice fishing. It’s a pastime that offers the chance to slow down and enjoy the great outdoors, all while putting a healthy source of protein on the dinner table. If you aren’t a big fan of the taste of fish, some types aren’t quite so “fishy” and have a milder flavor, including catfish and trout. Some say it helps temper the flavor by soaking fillets in equal parts water and vinegar for 30 minutes before cooking, or soaking fillets overnight in milk or buttermilk. You can also try mixing and matching herbs and spices to create a blend that your palate will enjoy. Fish readily takes…

Charles Darwin, who was fascinated with earthworms, wrote, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.” Worms have made the soil of many nations fertile, and they will do the same for your soil. Having thousands of earthworms in your garden is like having a thousand tiny tillers running day and night, and each tiller is pulling a compost spreader behind it. Earthworms mix the soil as they eat their way through it, and their tunnels help loosen compacted clay or silt, allowing water to seep through. This also helps increase aeration of the soil, sometimes up to 75 percent, which in turn allows the tiny organisms around your…

For pear and apple growers, fire blight (Erwinia amylovora) is an unavoidable fact of life. Outbreaks can be sporadic and hard to predict, and can rip through an orchard like wildfire when they strike. Blight-infected shoots and branches appear scorched and blackened, their tips bent over into a distinctive “shepherd’s crook.” An outbreak can devastate an orchard in a season. Though there is no cure, fire blight can be managed and brought under control with the following steps recommended by the University of California, Cornell University, and Louisiana State University: 1. Select blight-resistant cultivars on resistant rootstocks. It is true that no variety is truly immune to fire blight, but many are resistant to some degree. This resistance can mean the difference between harvesting crops with careful disease management, and…

I’M OF THE OPINION that chickens do better in large numbers; dozens of hens hanging out together, just like their eggs. Gangs, armies, fantastic flocks of fowl, hustling about the barnyard, grassy pastures, and all along the fence lines. Community chickens. Chickenopolis. More chickens, more eggs. More roasted chicken. More chicken and dumplings. More chicken stock, chicken enchiladas, chicken tetrazzini. You get the picture: Plenty of farm-raised chicken for you and the family. The correct number and balance here at my farm seems to be around 25 hens and a couple of roosters. But I’m always in the market for a few more chickens. Got any for sale? Once you find yourself surrounded by 20 or 30 chickens, you’ll need to help them out with a source of clean water,…

FOR YEARS, I have been planning to build myself a nice set of raised beds for the garden. I figured I’d mill the lumber from the plentiful trees in the hedgerows on my farm. Each year it seemed, the time came and went, and the lumber never got milled. And the garden was more or less of a disaster – but not really because of the beds not being raised. Mainly because life delivered a few priorities that superseded my best-laid plans for fencing, stock management, tree growing, hay making and gardening. This summer it feels like I am back in the saddle, at least tentatively. For the first time in a few years, I muscled through the cool season haymaking without much fanfare or downtime. It’s funny what some…

Share your visual perspective with the GRIT community. Post your photos at Facebook.com/GritMagazine, Facebook.com/CappersFarmer, or tag us on Instagram (GritMag). We chose several images you see here from those platforms, and you can find more within the blogging community on our websites. Share your best shots, and we just might select one of your photos for a future issue of the magazine. To admire even more readers’ photos, visit Grit.com and CappersFarmer.com.…

We enjoyed your “Summer Strawberries” article (Page 6 of the July/August issue, http://bit.ly/29CgA6w), and thought you might like to see how we are trying to move our strawberry bed “closer,” as well. Both of us are at the age where bending down to weed and to harvest berries is more difficult; and at the same time, the chipmunks and robins have no trouble at all helping themselves to our strawberries before we do. So my husband took an old pallet, filled it with dirt, and fastened it onto two sawhorses. We planted strawberries and one row of lettuce in the cracks. We planted the first several rows with bare root plants purchased in a big-box store, and most of them did not grow. The healthy ones you see here were…

WEIGH YOUR FLOUR: Most recipes measure flour by volume instead of weight, meaning they call for 1 cup of flour instead of 5 ounces. A perfectly measured cup of flour weighs 5 ounces. However, that same cup will weigh less if you pack the flour too loosely, and it will weigh more if you pack it in the measuring cup too tightly. To be sure you’re using the proper amount of flour, weigh it on a kitchen scale. USE COLD INGREDIENTS: All of your ingredients should be cold – including the flour and salt – to achieve the best results. The fat especially needs to be very cold, so it stays solid during the mixing process. (Put your shortening in the freezer for a bit to make sure it’s good…

Chainsaws are remarkable tools. In the right hands, they are capable of cutting trees for clearing land, producing lumber or firewood, and even rough (very rough) construction framing. Almost every country-dwelling homesteader has at least one, and most of us are proud of our mastery over the tool. But even in the hands of trained professionals, they are respected for their dangerous side which, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, puts logging as the most hazardous occupation. Consider these sobering statistics compiled by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission: ■ There were about 36,000 chainsaw-related hospital emergency room visits in 2013. ■ The average chainsaw injury requires 110 stitches, with an average cost of $12,000 in medical bills. ■ Medical costs…

It happens occasionally: Midsummer you stumble across a wasp or hornet nest in an incredibly lousy location. It’s huge, and in a location you need to frequent, preferably without getting stung. What do you do? First, get a feel for the area during the daylight. Pay attention to angles of approach (you will need to get fairly close to the nest), as well as escape routes (you may need to beat a hasty retreat). The good news is that while wasps and hornets are active during the day, you’ll be removing the nest after dark. Second, purchase two cans of an aerosol wasp and hornet killer, preferably one that uses pyrethrin as an active ingredient. Pyrethrin and its chemical derivatives, pyrethroids, are relatively low impact pesticides with a short degradation…

BOBWHITE QUAIL NUMBERS remain down, but programs to rebuild populations are being aggressively developed. Many don’t remember the good old days of quail hunting. Here is a brief excerpt from my 1989 journal: Snow crunched underfoot as the pointer ran through a huge cornfield. Suddenly the muscular dog came to a complete stop, hesitated, and then froze in a deliberate point. Ted Hatfield moved slowly towards the pointer, carefully selecting each of his steps amid thick corn stubble. A shiver flushed through the dog’s body. No doubt about it, pointing quail or pheasant is what this dog was born to do. Hatfield slowly moves closer. Anticipation of a covey rise grew with each step – for both hunter and dog. Hatfield finally reached the statuelike pointer who was intensely starring…

Back in the mid 1990s, during a visit to my hometown, I stopped by the Sioux Falls Brewery to try their beers. As a home brewer, I was keen to glean any information about their beers and brewing process that I could. However, something else on their menu caught my eye — the burgers. The brewery’s burgers were made of beef from a local farm, and the cattle were fed spent grains donated to the farm from the brewery. What a great idea, I thought. The brewery doesn’t have to pay to send their spent grains to a landfill, and the farmer gets free food for his livestock. The Sioux Falls Brewery is gone now, but with the increase in the number of brewpubs and small breweries in the United…