Time to start saving those 2liter bottles again

Check out this tutorial on how to make a greenhouse out of plastic 2liter soda bottles over at http://ana-white.com/2011/04/plastic-bottle-green-house-build-guide

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Instructions on how to build a plastic bottle greenhouse using 2ltr plastic lemonade bottles. This was produced as part of the Greenspaces project with primary schools in Moray. http://www.reapscotland.org.uk/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=8

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How I built my Greenhouse, or how to ignore instructions and get away with it! http://www.squidoo.com/plasticbottlegreenhouse

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Plastic bottle greenhouse http://www.appropedia.org/Plastic_bottle_greenhouse

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden

Last night I bought a new book on dehydrating. Drying With an Attitude By Mary T. Bell. At the start of this book she states "One of my mentors has been Buffalo Bird Woman."  She describes this book as "a rare and valuable window into the past by clearly documenting specific details of how Native Americans grew, harvested, dried, stored, and cooked their food." 

This reminded me that A while ago when I read The Resilient Gardener by Carol Deppe. Carol frequently referred to Buffalo Bird Woman’s garden.





Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa Indian born about 1839, was an expert gardener. Following centuries-old methods, she and the women of her family raised huge crops of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers on the rich bottom lands of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. When she was young, her fields were near Like-a-Fishhook, the earth-lodge village that the Hidatsa shared with the Mandan and Arikara. When she grew older, the families of the three tribes moved to individual allotments on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.In Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, first published in 1917, anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson transcribed the words of this remarkable woman, whose advice today's gardeners can still follow. She describes a year of activities, from preparing and planting the fields through cultivating, harvesting, and storing foods. She gives recipes for cooking typical Hidatsa dishes. And she tells of the stories, songs, and ceremonies that were essential to a bountiful harvest.A new introduction by anthropologist and ethnobotanist Jeffery R. Hanson describes the Hidatsa people's ecologically sound methods of gardening and Wilson's work with this traditional gardener.

After reading reviews of this book that glowingly state testimonials such as "As a messenger of the old ways, she detailed how to build drying platforms, the best days to dry corn, beans, squash, buffalo, serviceberries, prairie turnips, and more. She cached food for two years in case the next growing season was a failure."  I knew this is a must read for me.

Each of the pictures of the books in this post are links to amazon where you can purchase them. But if your cheap frugal like me, I wanted to share a link I found where you can download a copy of Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians for free from the 

Digital Library

 

  Click here to go to book http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t0sq90970

Do you Re-grow your garbage?

We have been eating the same green onions I bought at the store all winter long. No I don't have a corning wear dish of mushy green onions sitting out at every dinner. But I do have a beautiful pot full of lush green onions growing on my windowsill. Here's a quick pin I found on pinterest to show you how to grow them. The only difference from how I grow them is after mine had a nice root system going I potted them.

Source: plumsintheicebox.typepad.com via Pacy on Pinterest

I had a bunch of celery that needed to be used up quickly before I was ready to cook with it, so I chopped it up leaving the bottom stub intact. Dehydrated the chopped up stuff for the spice rack and I am going to re-grow more celery from the bottom stub. Here's a great how to re-grow celery pin.

Source: chickensintheroad.com via Pacy on Pinterest

Next neat regrow pin I want to try is re-growing ginger from store bought ginger roots. Check this one out.

Source: tropicalpermaculture.com via Pacy on Pinterest

 

 

I did find this neat book with loads of plants you can re-grow from your kitchen garbage.

Almost Garden Time

 Our weather is finely in the 50's this week. With the ice and snowing melting and the property a big mud bog it's really got me in garden mode. Time to start planning the garden and start the seeds ☺

Last year I started my seeds in 2 liter soda bottles, sorta like mini terrarium. But I found this technique very space consuming. I needed alot of lights for the amount of plants I started. And I found that my plants became very leggy because with the height of the bottles I could not lower the lights to the proper distance. This year my daughter is starting a large garden. And with my DGS's 2 year old "helping" fingers, she figures that it's a better idea to keep her seedlings at my house.  So now it's time to come up with a better way to start my seeds. I've always wanted the Paper Pot Maker, but no way will I spend $18.95 for it. After hunting around the Internet I found these 2 video's. I like this 1st video because it seems to make a stronger pot, more like the wooden pot maker. But the 2nd video is more simpler, and if you twist the cup in the last step it should tighten up the pot bottom just as good. I think will be using one of these 2 video's to start our veggies this year.

How to Make Elderberry Syrup

I guess I took a sabbatical, but it didn’t feel like one...

Things have been pretty hectic around here. My Hubby has been undergoing lots of medical tests and then 4 weeks of physical therapy. Of course just when he was getting steadier on his feet we hit the max on his insurance for physical therapy. Never fails, it sucked seeing my pts. loose PT when I was working as a head injury nurse, and it sucks more when it’s your hubby loosing out. At least the testing is all done till we take the results in to the specialist in late October.

We apparently had that Animal sucker sign hanging on our foreheads again. Courtesy of my DD, we now have a horse dog that takes up more of a king size bed than my hubby and I can. His name is Ukie and how she ever thought that big beast could live in her little apartment with her, the grandkids and a little miniscule yard is beyond me.

Three of the five girls are laying steady now. We now have had a grand total of 61 adorable, tasty, medium brown eggs with the thickest shells I’ve ever cracked. I’m not kidding, I dropped one on the counter and it bounced without a crack.

I won a book! I'm so excited, I never won anything until this week! I love Heather’s Homemaking Blog. Well she had a drawing for a copy of Sharon Astyk’s book A Nation of Farmers that she wrote with Aaron Newton. Yay, I won it and I can’t wait to read it. Thank you so much Heather. Please visit her blog here.

We're Laying

At least one or two of the Girl's are. Yesterday I found the first egg, the darker one on the left, inside the Chicken house right in front of the door. Today I found the lighter egg hidden under some hay in the back corner of the house. The nest boxes show signs of the girls making themselves comfy in them, but no egg laying. Since I suspect the lighter egg may have been the first egg layed and that I just missed finding it, I marked both eggs and put them each in a nesting box. Maybe now my girls will get the idea of where I'd like them to deposit their eggs.

The Ultimate Food Shelf Life Guide

I love this Website! My Hubby was often dumping things when it hit their expiration date, will I was countering that they were still good. Now I have proof! According to information from the USDA, CDC, and other agencies, unopened or opened, Milk is good  for 1 week after the sell by date. After eggs are purchased, they may be refrigerated for 3 to 5 weeks - the "sell-by" date on the package, if one exists, will usually expire during that storage period, but the eggs will remain safe to use. Egg Salad — Homemade Or Store-prepared will keep 3 to 5 days in the Refrigerator. That open bottle of prepared Horseradish will keep 3 - 4 months if it's kept continuously refrigerated. An opened bottle of ketchup should stay at peak quality for about 6 months in the fridge and mustard for at least a year. And both will remain safe to consume for much longer than that, as long as they've been continuously refrigerated.

Keep it or Toss it, you just type in the name of your Food or Beverage, Store Bought or Home Made,  and it will tell you how long it's good for. Click Here to Check Out Their Website

Springtime Workings

I love working outside, no matter if I'm in the garden or working on the chicken coop Chili's always looking over my shoulder just waiting with an offer to help. We've been busy With my Aunts old playhouse and a chicken run my son got from a friend we're slowly getting the Girls coop done. They are beginning to get their wing feathers.

Got most of the seeds done that need to be started inside the house. I turned my buffet into a greenhouse. My poor dining room with chickens and a greenhouse, good thing no one wants to come near us since we're still getting over the flu, they can't see my mess. That's the green house on the left. I have 4 grow lights all plugged into a timer so they get the correct amount of light. and since our house can get chilly I put in a radiator to keep the temp. at a constant temperature. This year I'm using 2 liter soda bottles to start the seeds in.

Got the paths done in the garden. I'm cutting seed potatoes tonight and will plant those soon as I get the final tilling done.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, TV Show and Petition

Jamie has made a new series for the ABC American TV network about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series is set in Huntington, West Virginia. Jamie's challenge is to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He works with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat.

Don't miss Jamie Oliver on the ABC network:

• Episode 1 Friday 26th March – 8pm EST
• Episode 2 Friday 26th March– 9pm EST
• Episode 3 Friday 2nd April – 9pm EST
• Episode 4 Friday 9th April – 9 pm EST
• Episode 5 Friday 16th April – 9 pm EST
• Season finale Friday 23rd April – 9 pm EST

Message from Jamie

The American Food Revolution needs to start now! If you care about your country and the health of its children please help us make a difference. We need your support to get people back in touch with food and keep cooking skills alive before it's too late. We want to make sure every kid gets good, fresh food at school. It's proven that real food promotes more effective learning. If you want better health for your kids the junk food must go. I need to be able to show The President and industry how many of you out there really care about this issue so please don't wait, sign up today. It will only take 30 seconds.
America's health needs you!
Thank you. Please forward this to your friends, family, classmates, teachers, colleagues and anyone else who you think cares as time is short.

CLICK Here to sign his petition

Let's Get Some Serious Support for Local Food Growing

Please support the idea of asking our federal government to send some of those stimulus money to promote local farms and gardens.

A Petition to Direct Stimulus Money to Local Food Production
Targeting: The President of the United States, The U.S. Senate and The U.S. House

Started by: Zev Paiss

Given the increasing instabilities in the American economy, rising oil prices, and unpredictable weather patterns, food security has become a pressing national issue. Today a handful of agri-businesses produce the majority of our food. Sadly, the 3,000 mile Caesar salad has become common place, and few Americans know a local farmer.

A combination of one or more external factors, such as extreme weather conditions, global conflict, or trade disputes with oil producing nations could easily lead to crop failure, disrupted food supplies, and widespread hunger -- unless we make fundamental changes in how we farm, process, distribute, and consume our food over the next 20 years.

Instead of sending tens of billions of dollars to the ailing car companies and hundreds of billions to the financial system, we must direct our federal government to invest at least 5 billion dollars to set up tens of thousands of urban farms and gardens so we can be assured to have a year-round source of healthy locally-grown food to eat in the years to come.

Click here to Sign the petition and let's get growing!