It has been LOOOOOOOG TIME

I've been thinking about this blogging thingy and wondering if I should keep it going...I'm sure I'm NOT alone..hahaha!

Things have changed since my daughter entered the world. She has been my world and my passion for gardening seems so dim in comparison. However, the trees that we planted are yielding fruits and we have been enjoying great harvest despite not putting as much work into the garden.

I'm rethinking my strategies in the sustainable garden...and something is on the horizon! I'm excited! :)

Schedule for March & April 2009

7th March - Meeting at Megan's place to learn about preserving the excess summer harvest.
- also to discuss the schedule for the rest of the year.

4th April - Harvest festival at Clarie's place (Feilding) to share all the yummies from our gardens.
- Sorry I won't be able to share in this celebration- my baby is due to arrive at this time!!

An email will be sent out with the details of the meeting locations. Contact me if you need more information.

February 2009 Meeting - Urban Vege Garden Tour

We visited 4 urban productive gardens - each had its own merits and beauty. But all were very productive. 3 out of the 4 gardens were tended by male gardeners. I guess there is hope for my lovely husband yet (tongue in cheek!). I think an annual garden tour at about this time of the year is great. I'll factor this in for next year's timetable.

Keep sowing seeds for lettuces, radishes, the fast summer crops. You'll still get a crop or two of those.

Also we briefly talked about winter planting.

Now is the time to put the winter vegetables in if you haven't done so. Sow seeds for the brassica families, leeks etc. I'm thinking of planting a crop of potatoes, not sure it's too late...if I get round to doing it this weekend.

Urban Permaculture Meetings 2008-2009

At the last meeting, we came up with a tentative meeting schedule for the next few months. The meeting date is always the first Saturday of each month at 2:30pm unless specified. Please contact me for meeting addresses.

2008
November - Farmer Cedric's Organic Dairy Farm, host by Susan and Cedric
- also bring any excess seedlings to share and exchange
December - Ocean Organics home garden, host by Judith

2009
January - Holiday
February - Planning the winter garden, host by Esther and Matt
March - Raising Pigs, making Salami, host by Susan and Cedric and Karine Chagne
April - TBC
May - Harvest Festival, host by Clarie

The urbanpermie is back!

I've been out of action for a while for a very good reason - I was having such bad all day sickness! I'm now into the 17th week of the pregnancy and my energy is finally returning. Also I can now sit infront of the computer for a longer period without feeling so sick.

Naturally as a result of the past few months of inaction, my garden is also in a state of neglect. For a the first time in many months, my husband and I spent some good hours trying to catch up with lost time. We were pretty amazed that within a few hours, the garden was looking quite acceptable again. We're convinced that Permaculture principles works!!

All through winter, the chookies in the chook tractor were working around the vegetable beds, so I have well mulched, fertilized vege beds ready for planting. What I need now are seedlings for planting.

All the fruit trees are doing really well this year. I think it's because the Tree lucerns are doing their job in providing wind shelter. The pear tree is looking exceptionally well - it could be the comfrey plant planted at the base of the pear tree. I'll now work towards planting comfrey at the base of all the fruit trees. Having said that, the mandarine tree was loaded with fruits late winter has suddenly taken a turn for the worst and died. Not sure why.

As for the chook family, one chook died in winter. It was the weakest link and it just wasn't strong enough to withstand the constant wet and extreme cold we had this year. Sadly another chook was eating it's own eggs and were extremely noise, so it went too. That's a blog entry in itself. We are left with 3 chookies at the moment.

I guess that's me for the moment...

Bicycle Energy

Just imagine- bike for an hour and power the house lights for a week! This is a reality for a man who found a solution to stay fit and solve a power crisis.

Check out the free plans to design bicycle energy systems for your home. You may be able to save some money this winter.

Milk Tonic for good health

Tiger’s Milk, an old naturopathic convalescent tonic for a perfect breakfast. A convalescent tonic was traditionally used to build people back up after an illness or stress, including childbirth.

Per person
2 x raw egg yolks (from free range eggs
½ - ¾ cup of milk, yoghurt or kefir
2-3 tablespoons of blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of coconut oil

First blend the yoghurt and berries until smooth, then add the egg yolks and coconut oil and blend until combined. It’s important to not over process the egg yolks so always add them last.

If you or a family member is allergic to dairy, you can replace the milk with almond milk or rice milk. To make either of these even more nutritious, culture them using Kefir grains or culture first. A less ideal option is to replace the milk with fresh or frozen orange juice – this works best as an afternoon snack rather than breakfast. You can also add some frozen banana for children (or fussy adults).

Matt and I love it. We find that the coconut flavor stands out the most. The shake has a beautiful purplish color, so quite appealing. We can hardly tastes the yolk. The natural yogurt and kefir give a tarty taste. If you like it a bit sweeter, adding some banana will do the trick, and I can imagine it going very well with the coconut flavor.

Making Friands

A good lemony muffin recipe by Pat Churchill to use up the excess egg whites and lemon rinds. Nothing goes wasted.

Lemon Friands
180g Butter
200g icing sugar
50g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp lemon essence
120g ground almonds
zest of 2 lemons
5 egg whites
extra icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C. Lightly grease muffin tins.
Melt the butter, then set it aside to cool.
Place butter, ground almonds, zest, essence, sifted icing sugar and flour into a mixing bowl.
Lightly beat the eggs whites till frothy and stir into the other ingredients till combined - don't over mix.
Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes till a toothpick inserted in clean when removed. Allow to stand for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
To serve, dust with icing sugar and accompany with whipped cream ans seasonal fruit.

It's Snowing in Palmy!

Oops, I mean it's hailing down like dogs and cats. I was so exciting that I rushed out barefooted with my camera!! The next thing, I felt my feet hurting - it felt like I was walking on ice (which I was!!) I simply couldn't contain my excitement. Next thing I knew, I ran to my neighbor's place, and invited her out to play in the ice with me. Oh oh, I could see my footprints. I felt like a child jumping up and down in joy after receiving a most precious present!!

Back to School....

Not quite. But I love blogging so much that I have enrolled to learn about web design and writing for the web with the Open Polytechnics. A bit radical, you might say. Firstly, I feel strongly that my writing has tonnes of room for improvement and secondly I like to have more control over the template (the control-freak part of me is emerging here). And I really can't believe that there is JUST THE COURSE for me!! So, why wait??

Both papers (web design & writing) are online papers, work out quite well as I do enjoy sitting long hours infront of the screen especially in winter. If everything goes as per planned, I should graduate this coming November.

On top of that, the one year Plant Propagation Course is also starting this week. So, I'll be just a tat busy the next 6 months.

These activities should be enough to keep my out of winter blues!!

Lacto Fermentation-The Microbial Family

After months of research and personal success with the experiment, I've come to the conclusion that we should include a lot more lacto fermented foods in our diet. Now, I keep a microbial family going at home. The members include Water Kefir, Milk Kefir, cultured yogurt, Kombucha and other lacto-fermented veges especially cabbages.

For years, I suffered from severe constipation. Once I was packed for 8 weeks. Believe me not, it was nasty. I thought I was dying. In a nutshell that was the beginning of my health journey in search of a cure for my constipation. It then took me another 6 years before I stumbled over the answer (Thanks to Tara who introduced Nourishing Traditions to me). From juicing to consuming tonnes of fiber, taking probiotic tablets, and herbal laxatives, the answer for me is finally found in lacto fermented foods.

It has been six months, and I hardly needed the usually herbal laxative to get things moving. Since, I've also found a few things that are especially hard on my digestive system. Too much carbohydrates will pack me up too. At the moment, I'm experimenting with sourdough recipes as I would like to enjoy carb without the side effects.

We're planning for a family, and I'm confident these lacto fermented foods will
help with easing constipation during pregnancy. Yes, these lacto fermented foods are safe to consume during pregnancy.

Community Gardens...

Every town should have a few active Community gardens going. In my opinion, community gardens are more than just growing veges; it's about connecting with people, taking control of food production, getting in touch with nature which also allows one to get in touch with oneself...

Never too old!!

We hosted 2007 Christmas lunch. Matt’s parents, his Nana and auntie and uncle gathered at our place for the occasion. My best effort for the day was a leg of ham, soft buns, salad and a pavlova from the supermarket. In any case the food went down surprising well.

For afternoon tea, I served up the zucchini pickle that I made the previous summer. It went down like a treat. Matt’s Nana loved it so much that she requested the recipe. The thought of the efforts I put into preserving it and how much harder it would be for her, I brushed off her request. Instead, she was supplied with a bigger bottle of pickle. A week later, a snail-mail came for me. It was from Nana. She thanked us for lunch but more importantly, she wanted the zucchini recipe. Sensing her determination, I wrote the recipe and snail-mailed it back to her. Later that week, there was a phone message from Nana. She had just made the zucchini pickle and was very pleased with it! Bless her cotton socks!! We celebrated her 90^th birthday in May 2008!!

Chinese Steam buns

I love steam buns!! It’s one of my comfort foods! It’s the texture of the dough that determines the quality of the bun, at least for me. I’ve been seeking for a Chinese bun dough recipe and I think I might have it now. Three other keys for making great steam buns:

1) The ingredients have to be fine (achieved by using the food processor to cut the cabbage etc
2) Mix in ¼ cold galantine (make from boiling up chicken legs) and ¾ cold filling (mince/cabbages is preferred as it holds up well)
3) Steam in a bamboo steamer

Here’s the dough recipe to make 60 small buns:
6 cups flours
¼ cup sugar
1 packet yeast
1tbs baking powder
1¼ cups warm milk
¾ cup warm water

Mix all the ingredients together, let it rise for 2 hours and the dough is ready for making buns with filling of your choice!

Why Raw Milk?

We drink RAW MILK these days and use it to make yogurt. Why Raw Milk?

Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer. Calves fed pasteurized milk do poorly and many die before maturity.

Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid; processors must remove slime and pus from pasteurized milk by a process of centrifugal clarification. Inspection of dairy herds for disease is not required for pasteurized milk. Pasteurization was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods.

But times have changed and modern stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks and inspection methods make pasteurization absolutely unnecessary for public protection. And pasteurization does not always kill the bacteria for Johne’s disease suspected of causing Crohn's disease in humans with which most confinement cows are infected.

Much commercial milk is now ultra-pasteurized to get rid of heat-resistant bacteria and give it a longer shelf life. Ultra-pasteurization is a violent process that takes milk from a chilled temperature to above the boiling point in less than two seconds. (Sources are listed on www.realmilk.com.)

Do you still want to drink pasteurized milk?

MARIA’S RAW MILK YOGURT

Between Maria Garcia and Kristina Boudrezux, they worked out a recipe to make a smooth, thick yogurt using raw milk loaded with beneficial stuff for the body. It produces a high quality yogurt in glass container. Start at night, after dinner, and let it set overnight (8hrs).

Ingredients:
1 quart raw, organic whole milk
1-8 ounce container Brown Cow whole milk yogurt, plain flavor (for the first batch)
or 3-4 tablespoons reserved yogurt from the previous batch

Tools:
Keep all of your utensils very clean, making sure there is no soap residue.

Method:

1. Heat the milk in a pan to 110°F (43°C), then remove from heat immediately.
2. Pour the warm milk into a 1 qt glass jar, add the yogurt culture, and seal loosely with the lid. Make sure to leave about 3/4 inch of air at the top of the jar so the culture has some space to grow.
   
3. Place the jar into a thermos and close. Put it on the countertop, and let it set overnight (8 hours).
4. In the morning, remove the glass jar from the thermos and put it into the refrigerator.
5. When you first open the yogurt jar, scoop out 3-4 tablespoons of yogurt (the "mother"), place it a container, and it in the refrigerator for later use to start your next batch.
6. If use raw milk, it lasts up to six months in the fridge. Yogurt from pasteurized milk will last 1 week in the fridge.
   

Tara tried the above recipe and says it is so delicious, just like Greek yogurt. The only problem is she wants to eat it all in one sitting!!

It blew us away!!

Matthew’s parents gifted him with 2 tickets to THE TEN TENORS concert on his birthday. This is a very special treat as Matt and I just aren’t in the habit of going to such extravagant concerts. Despite our excitement, we just made it there on time. We soon settled down and the Ten Tenors came on stage. The setting was simple and minimal. The lighting and quality of sound were the props. The music was absolutely spectacular. It was light-hearted and entertaining but the quality of the singing simply blew us away. Cute boys with handsome voices have a drooling effect on me!! The 2-hour show felt like 5 minutes. I was truly sad when the concert came to an end. You can get a glimpse of their beautiful music from the mp3 at their website. Thank you, mum and dad for the most generous gift.

Don't Make Me Think

My interest in Web Design started when I started blogging a year ago. Last weekend, someone recommended a book by Steve Krug “Don’t make me think” on web usability. It’s a very light hearted reading for anyone who’s into web design or blogging.

One key principle that Steve advocates is eliminate question marks that users might have. In short, don’t make them think by making the design, links, clinks etc as OBVIOUS as possible. This is relevant to me in terms of making my blog as user friendly as possible.

Pig Keeping - Part 2

In the second round, K&D bought 2 females crosses between whites and saddlebacks. Male pigs tend to produce too much testosterone which taints the taste of the meat. Besides, the smell can be overpowering for some people.

The pigs were fed on food waste collected from K’s workplace. However, K&D still had to travel 20kms everyday just to feed to the pigs. This incurred quite a bit of fuel money and carbon footprints. Fencing was still quite a problem as it just wasn’t strong enough to keep them in. So, the recurring theme is BUILD STRONG FENCING.

Finally, those girls were sent to the works mid last week.

At the weekend, K&D processed 2 kgs worth of pig liver into pate. The carcasses need to be hung for a week to before processing. This process will mature the meat which improves the texture and flavors.

K&D have decided not to keep any more pigs for the time being until they’re living on their acres, which shouldn’t be too far off.

D feeling all sentimental wrote a tribute to those pigs:

Poor girls must have passed to Pigs by now! Pigs Paradise must look like a large jungle of freshly planted trees to dig out and chew young leaves of, big buckets of noodle curries to roll in and lots of human made things to destroy happily.

Plant Propagation

Agribusiness Training is commencing a course in Plant Propagation next month, i.e. July (in Palmerston North). It’s a course that is taught over one year so that all seasonal propagation activities can be undertaken. If you’re a NZ citizen or NZ permanent Resident, the course fee is $150 for the entire course.

Apart from all the knowledge you'll acquire, you'll also receive:
-A fully functional propagation unit, including watering systems and temperature gauges to keep at home
-Home visits from the tutor for one-on-one tuition
-Field-trips to view commercial nursery production units and other areas of gardening interest in your region, where available

All in all a fabulous course for any garden enthusiasts. I’ll be enrolling for this course, and hopefully more urban permies will join me as well.

If you are interested, go to http://www.agribusiness.ac.nz/ for more information. Clink on the picture to enlarge the timetable.