DIY Natural A-Frame Trellis Part 1

Today my boyfriend and I started making trellises for our peas, cucumbers, gourds and melons.  We had an abundance branches from cut trees.  So we dug through the pile of tree limbs matching similar size branches. 

Basically we started with a tripod.  Taking 3 branches and anchoring them together using the natural notches in the stick to lock them in place.  We wound the thickest jute I could find around the sticks, wrapping tightly and knotting in multiple places. 

We built 2 tripods close to the same height.  Then put a long, relatively straight beam across the tripods giving us a well supported a-frame.   We tied the center beam down, although it didn’t seem necessary because they are pretty sturdy as they are.

We made a couple for the house garden, and 3 others to take to our other gardens in the neighborhood.  We tied them up in little bundles so we can carry them easily and remember which branches go together.  It seems to be easier to set the frame up on site, rather than carry tripods.  Once you have some branches picked out it really only takes about 15 minutes to put together. 

And best of all these trellises are all natural and biodegradable, just compost or burn when you’re done.  We haven’t decided what to put across the sides to encourage the plants to grow up the frame.  Wire fencing, bird netting, or jute is what we are debating. Jute will work for peas and possibly for cucumbers if strung in a grid, but that will be figured out in Part 2.

Veggie Enchiladas

I love this style of enchilada, with a cream of mushroom base.  My step mom would make them from time to time and the family would devour them!  And you can easily substitute other veggies to stuff the enchiladas depending on the season.

Start by making a cream of mushroom soup

½ pound mushrooms, diced

1 small red onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 TBSP vegan butter

1 ½ CUP veggie broth

Sautee mushrooms, onion, garlic in vegan butter until onions are soft and translucent.

Add veggie broth, cover and simmer for 30 minutes

Add:

1 TBSP flour

1 CUP vegan sour cream

½ CUP almond / rice / soy milk

1 can diced green chiles (4 – 7 oz can depending on taste)

Salt, Pepper to taste

Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes

Set aside ¾ of the sauce, to remaining ¼ of sauce add:

½ zucchini, cut in strips

1 carrot, cut in strips

4 or 5 mushrooms cut in strips

1 CUP corn

1 Cup Beans

Continue simmering for another 5 minutes, then stir in chopped green onion and cilantro to taste

Stuff 10 tortillas with veggie mix

Add another ½ CUP milk to sauce that was set aside and pour over stuffed tortillas

Bake at 350° F for 30- 35 minutes, or until bubbly

Printable Recipe HERE

Stuffed Tofurkey

 

I’ve been vegetarian for over 10 years now and I’ve never made a tofurkey!  So I figured it was about time.  I looked at a bunch of different recipes, combining several but mostly followed this one; it has great pictures of each step.  It’s also an easy recipe to adapt depending on what herbs you have available.

This is a bit of a process, but after tasting the results I may be making it every year!

Basically you are making 3 parts; the “turkey”, stuffing and a marinade.  I started 2 days before Thanksgiving, because I had to drive to Columbus this morning, but you can make it work starting the day before.  And if you’re already out of time, there is always this fabulous beer can tofurkey idea!

 

 

TOFURKEY

INGREDIENTS:

3-4 14 oz containers of extra firm tofu
1-2 TBSP of each of the following herbs:
   Oregano
   Sage
   Rosemary
   Thyme
   Garlic Scapes (/Chives/Green Onions)
Salt and Pepper to taste

 

 
Let the tofu sit out overnight or at least a few hours so it’s at room temperature. 

 

With your hands, squeeze all the liquid you can get out of the tofu.  Then mix in the remaining ingredients.

 

 

Take a clean, wet piece of cheesecloth and drape it over a strainer.  I sprinkled some rosemary and chopped sage leaves down first.  Then scoop the tofu mix into the covered strainer.  Use the excess cheesecloth to wrap the top of the tofu and press any liquid out.  Put a bowl under the strainer and a plate on top of the cloth.  Sit in the fridge overnight and place something heavy (I used a juice bottle) on top of the plate so that the presser will continue to squeeze liquid out of the tofurkey. 

 

 

 

STUFFING

You can make this the day of your meal or before and refrigerate.

INGREDIENTS:

3 CUPS bread cubes
1 TSP or so olive oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 celery stick, finely diced
1 small apple, diced
3 TBSP herbs (I used sage, cilantro, rosemary and thyme)
Pinch of cayenne (crushed red pepper)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 TBSP maple syrup
1 TSP balsamic vinegar
½ CUP sunflower seeds or other nut/seed
¼ CUP dried fruit (I used dried goji berries from the garden but you can use cherries, cranberries, etc.)
½ CUP vegetable broth

 

First cut the bread into cubes and dry in the over for 20 minutes or so at 250°F.

 

Heat a pan with a little olive oil and sauté the onion for a few minutes until soft.

 

Add celery, cook another 2 minutes

 

Add apple, herbs and spices and cook 5 more minutes.

 

Add syrup and balsamic vinegar, mix and remove from heat.

 

Combine this mixture with the dried bread cubes, seeds and dried fruit.

 

Put the stuffing into a greased pan and pour the vegetable broth over the top.

 

Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes at 300°F.

 

MARINADE

I also made the marinade the day before and let it soak in all the flavors.

 

INGREDIENTS:

¼ CUP Braggs (/soy sauce/tamari)
¼ CUP olive oil
½ CUP chopped herbs (I used sage, chives, rosemary, thyme, oregano, and parsley)
1 TSP sesame seeds, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

 

 

 

 

Just mix everything together and keep in the refrigerator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASSEMBLY….

 

Scoop out the center of the tofurkey, leaving an inch or so on the sides.

 

Fill hole with stuffing, and recover with scooped out tofu.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then very carefully flip the whole tofurkey into a cooking pan (I just sort of picked up the whole cheesecloth, placed the baking pan on top of the tofu and flipped).

 

Baste with the marinade, and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours at 350°F.  Baste the tofurkey as much as you want throughout the baking.

 

I had some extra stuffing, so I reheated it separately and added it in around my tofurkey!

 

Beautiful and tastes amazing!  Much better than eating something this cute…..

 

My first attempt at Pickling

I wanted to try a super basic pickling recipe my first time and we really only had one huge cucumber ready.  Our pickling cucumbers didn’t do great this year, but we decided to try pickling an 18 inch Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri Cucumber.  I made refrigerator pickles and just used a pack of Ball Dill Pickling mix (found with canning supplies).  The small pack makes 2 quarts, or 4 pints.  I figured our one cucumber would only fill 2 pints, so I grabbed some beets and okra and a couple beans for the other half.  The recipe was super simple.  I boiled the beets for 10 minutes or so until they were tender and washed and sliced the veggies.

Then I just followed the instructions on the pickling mix, which entailed bringing water, vinegar and the pickling mix to a boil.  Then pour that mixture over your sliced veggies in a bowl.  Let the mixture cool to room temperature.  Then I sterilized the jars and lids by placing them in simmering water.  Then stuff the jars with veggies and liquid, store in the refrigerator for at least 3 weeks.  And then they should last for about 3 months.  I will update when we actually get to try them.  Can’t wait!

Today’s Harvest – Feathers, Veggies, Herbs and Art

I love days when I don’t have to go to work!  I can do so many wonderful things!  I started the day with a little photo shoot, taking pictures of a couple new skirts to put up on Etsy.  There is this amazing alleyway next to my house that is filled with colorful graffiti, so I can literally walk 2 minutes to a perfect back drop for my photos!

I came home, cleaned up some chicken poop and collected a bunch of feathers. We didn’t choose our chicken by breed, just took a group of random chicks my dad’s neighbor hatched. And at first I was disappointed that 2 of them are white, because I thought their feathers wouldn’t be that exciting. It didn’t occur to me then that this was a wonderful thing because now I can dye their feathers. Apparently you can use good old Rit dye easily and get all kinds of colors. I also have been interested in experimenting with pokeberries, so I plan to dye feathers this way as well. I found this great site for information on using pokeberries, which you may very well already have growing in your back yard!

Along with the feathers we also harvested these amazing veggies and made a big salad for lunch.  Then I picked a ton of herbs and made Italian herb bread.  Actually I made 3 loaves of bread; one for dinner tonight with a few friends, one for making bruschetta tomorrow for dinner with my family and one for the house!

And in between the bread rising and baking I splatter painted some fabric for future rock and roll skirts!  As you can see!  I wish everyday could be a day off “work”.  One day.  I also officially started my future farm savings account last night so I’m ready to get serious!

Pole Bean Project

Gardening is all about experimentation for me. We are constantly learning what works best in which areas and next to which plants. This mindset of constant learning also helps us deal with disappointment when something doesn't work out, because we just think about how we can do it better next year.

One project I'm really excited about is our 10 foot Rattlesnake Pole Beans from Fedco that we planted up against the front of the house.  Basically we made posts out of old wire coat hangers.  We straightened the wire out flat and then cut each hanger in half by bending it back and forth in the same spot so it eventually broke apart.  Then we bent one side into a loop like this...

We shoved these posts into the ground as far as we could.  Then stapled long pieces of string to the outside edge of our windows, and attached the other side to the loop on our posts, pulling the string taught.  Then we planted our beans around the posts and waited to see what happened.

So far so good.  The beans are growing up the strings, only about 3 feet high at this point, but hopefully they will get close to the windows by the end of the summer.  All our windows are south facing and we don't have air conditioning so this should not only give us lots of beans, but also help cool the house a little by providing shade.


*UPDATE* Sunday August 6th, 2012

The beans are doing great! Almost reaching the second story window, which is even taller than they typically grow. We harvested our first 2 beans today and threw them in a salad. Taste great and look awesome growing up the house.

Three Sisters Beds

I just wanted to share how awesome our corn, beans, gourds and amaranth are doing!  Our yard is already filled with a garden where we have herbs, greens, tomatoes, peppers, fruit trees, cucumbers, onions and so on… But not much space for corn.  Luckily a friend down the street has a huge sunny backyard, so we dug a couple beds, mixed a little manure and compost in and planted away.  Everything looks amazing.  The smaller bed was planted about 2 weeks after the first one.  Here is what we planted and where we got our seeds:

Ohio Blue Clarage Corn (Southern Exposure)

Black Iroquois Sweet Corn (Southern Exposure)

Purple Podded Pole Bean (Baker Creek)

Provider Bush Green Bean (Fedco)

Blue Bush Lake 274 Green Bean (Fedco)

Bushel Basket Gourd (Baker Creek)

Opopeo Amaranth (Baker Creek)

Hopi Red Dye Amaranth (Fedco)

I’ve only had the space to do a Three Sisters garden once, and I had to move out before harvesting, so I’m excited to see how these beds do!  Everything can be eaten except the gourds.  I’m not so into squash, so I figured something useful could replace it, like a gourd you can make bowls out of!  The Ohio Blue Corn can be eaten as sweet corn when it’s young, but we plan on trying to make corn meal with it once it’s mature.  You can eat the amaranth greens in salads and whatnot, use the seeds in breads and I definitely plan on experimenting with dying fabric using the Hopi amaranth.

Gardening is so exciting!  And since these are new beds the bugs are pretty minimal. Way different from out house garden, which has been full of plants and bugs for years.  If only we could get some rain!