Urban Farming In Oakland

Posted on August 31, 2011 · Leave a Comment
Photo by Jess Watson

Recently we were featured in an article along with Esperanza of Pluck and Feather in Edible East Bay, a quarterly publication about the foods of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Yeah, I know, we’re in Solano County but we have a similar demographic to Oakland and we support many of Oakland’s urban farmers. We even attend their community workshops.

The one bonus of not living in Oakland is that we have not become a target yet. We may become one in the future, but us Vallejoans have bigger fish to fry at the moment (high crime, high poverty, bankrupt city).

One of the people interviewed for the article was Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, a vegan chef and animal rights activist. She made a statement that I found intriguing along with being downright false. That raising your own meat animals makes people violent. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this argument. 


But that argument doesn’t make much sense to me. After all, I’m not a violent person. Neither is my husband or my stepson. Oakland has had an issue with violence that is completely unrelated to raising meat animals. Farmers and ranchers aren’t exactly known for being violent people either. Violence is much more likely caused by inequality, poverty and exploitation. 


Raising my own meat animals has made me value their lives more. I have a connection with them that you just can’t get by pulling plastic wrapped meat out of the grocery store cooler. 

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Filed Under: Current Events, Farm Diary Tagged With:

Flickr of Inspiration – Flavored Butter

Posted on August 30, 2011 · 1 Comment

We don’t get much cream so homemade butter is a distant dream. This homemade butter, however, looks amazing!

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Filed Under: Flickr of Inspiration

The Perennial Plate – Seaside Foraging

Posted on August 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment


The Perennial Plate Episode 68: A Tale of Three Seasides from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.

I’m super excited about this episode because it includes my hunter-gatherer hero, Hank Shaw. I have yet to meet him, but hopefully in the future I will.

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Filed Under: Foraging & Hunting

The Basics of Making Preserves

Posted on August 28, 2011 · 2 Comments

Preserves were the first thing I learned how to can. We got gobs and gobs of various fruits every year – from nectarines to strawberries to figs to persimmons and everything in between. They sit in our freezer taking up space.

Then we decided that preserves would make awesome gifts for people. I haven’t bought a gift for Xmas for anyone for 3 years now and my bank account loves me for it.

I make preserves differently than most people. I don’t add pectin. Why not? Because I don’t want to spend the money not only on the pectin but also on the additional sugar it requires. Because frutose (the sugar in fruit) tastes sweeter than sucrose (table sugar) these preserves are actually slightly sweeter tasting because there is less sugar in the recipe to “cut” the fructose.

My general rule of thumb is 2 parts fruit to 1 part sugar by volume. For every pound of fruit I also add a tablespoon of lemon juice to up the acidity and increase the natural pectin. Sometimes you will need to vary the ratio depending on the fruit. Usually the length of time I boil it can help work out any issues though.

I add the fruit to a thick bottomed pot and then pour the sugar over it. I turn the heat up to medium-high and stir until the fruit and sugar liquefy. It will boil and foam up. Just keep stirring. When the foam goes down only keep it on the heat for awhile longer. I usually keep a serving spoon nearby and take samples of the mixture while cooking it to determine if it’s thick enough. It should still be runny, but the consistency of maple syrup at room temp.

Immediately ladle into sterilized jars, wipe the rim clean and then screw on the lid. It’s recommended to put through a boiling water bath for 10 min. or so.

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Filed Under: Condiments, Preserving, Recipes Tagged With: ,

Things I’ve Learned This Year – Part 1

Posted on August 27, 2011 · 13 Comments

Every year I find it helpful to write about the things I’ve learned in the garden so that I can make sure I avoid the same mistakes next year. Plus it helps teach all of you the obstacles I’ve faced so that you can learn what to avoid. So here’s what I’ve learned this year so far.

1. Late rains cause all sorts of problems. Splitting fruit and a deluge of powder mildew, slugs, snails and other diseases and pests. The powdery mildew is the worst I’ve ever seen it actually. It’s attacked my tomatillos, which I’ve always considered bombproof. We’re also seeing a lot of it on our squash, and it’s greatly reduced the productivity of our zucchini. Yes, apparently zucchini isn’t always throwing fruit at you.

2. Purple beans are not easier to find in the foliage than green beans. Well, at least at first. However, what I do like about them is that they don’t make my arms itch when I harvest them. I also find they are more productive so next year we’ll be planting them again – just not so many.

3. Potato FAIL. We had a miserable potato harvest this year. We’ve decided that we’re going to take them out of the ground and create pallet boxes to grow them in. That way they won’t be competing with weeds, particularly bindweed, which can reduce yields by over 30% and we can control the soil texture. The bonus of the pallet boxes is that it will be easier for us to label the varieties and keep the separate – especially the yellow potatoes.

4. Our two smaller beds need a makeover. The bindweed in them is completely uncontrollable and I’ve pretty much given up on them. So we’re going to suck it up and build raised beds in their location with hardware cloth and weedblock underneath them and clean topsoil in them.

5. Apple tree and cherry tree FAIL. Our Fuji apple tree was hit this year with Bacterial Blossom Blast. Over half of it was affected. One of our cherry trees was hit with Verticillium wilt which is even more serious and we’ll have to remove that tree. I’m bummed out because it’s such a big beautiful tree – or at least it was. We’re going to keep the cherry tree because they do sometimes recover spontaneously and it currently has live buds on it. The apple tree, however, is going to need to come out and be replaced with something else. I’m just not sure by what yet.

6. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If a system or variety is working out for us I need to stop screwing around with it. The corn is a prime example. Bloody Butcher, a heirloom variety, has always treated us well, but for a couple of years I was looking for a better variety. Nothing ever did as well as Bloody Butcher so we finally started growing it again and will focus on that variety for years to come. We also had attempted in previous years to grow the corn with beans. It just doesn’t work well for us so I won’t be doing that anymore either.

This is what I have for now. I’m sure I’ll be learning more as the season progresses.

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Filed Under: Gardening, Growing Tips

By the Skin of His Little Bunny Teeth

Posted on August 27, 2011 · 2 Comments
Big Boy Lou

Oh Lou. You just couldn’t seal the deal.

When Kumquat was old enough to be bred we tried to breed her to Lou. At the time we had two American Blue bucks, Lou and Scooter. Unfortunately Scooter is Kumquat’s littermate – too close in relation to breed to her. Since we couldn’t breed our single American doe to Scooter, he has since moved on to another home where he will be paired up with an unrelated doe.

But Lou wasn’t related to Kumquat, so he was going to be her mate. It didn’t work. Kumquat ended up mounting Lou more often than vice versa and when he did mount her he just couldn’t connect. So we ended up breeding Kumquat to our Californian buck, Ricky, who was smaller and more confident. We tried breeding Lucy to him, but it didn’t work either. Lou seemed shy and just wasn’t confident enough.

We figured something was wrong with Lou. Esperanza tried breeding her doe, Annabelle, to him twice. Once the day we got him and then later on. The first time it was a no go. The second time it worked. OK, so we knew he could do it. After trying him on Kumquat and Lucy some more he still couldn’t connect with either of them. Then Esperanza bred him to her doe, Gerti. She had a rather large litter thanks to Lou.

Come on Lou, what gives?

Kumquat

Two weeks ago we decided to give it a go again with Kumquat. She was no longer a virgin bunny, so I was hoping that would help. Jeanette and I sat and watched them for an hour on a Saturday afternoon. Nothing. Again, Kumquat ended up humping him more than he did her. Still no connection. So we separated them. Sunday we decided to give it another try. Still nothing.

Tom said to get rid of him. Find someone that would want him and we’ll have to look into getting another buck. I didn’t want to give up that easily though. I knew he could breed successfully, he was just having a hard time with Kumquat (and Lucy) for some reason.

We took Kumquat out and decided to give Lucy one more go. She was a lot more experienced with breeding and I was hoping that this time he’d seal the deal and gain a little confidence with her. It worked almost immediately. He was finally able to breed one of my does. But we don’t want to be breeding mixed breed rabbits. We had to get him to breed our American doe. Having a home here was hanging by a thread.

The following weekend we decided to breed Kumquat with Ricky again. We needed her to be more experienced as well and Ricky is a fairly aggressive buck when it comes to breeding. Almost immediately he connected. Awesome. And not once did she try to mount him. She obviously needed a more dominant buck because she’s a dominant doe.

After just one breeding (we generally let our rabbits go at it at least 3 times consecutively) we removed Ricky and put Lou back in.

I was like watching your favorite fooball team score the winning touchdown at the Superbowl with just 2 seconds on the clock. Cheering and yes, high fives. Lou did it! Not once, not twice, not even three times, but FOUR times! I guess breeding him to Lucy helped give him some confidence.

We’ll probably still end up with mixed breed rabbits, but I’m just happy that Lou and Kumquat were able to successfully breed.

He gets to stay here with us.

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Filed Under: Livestock, Rabbits Tagged With:

California Herdshare – Illegal?

Posted on August 25, 2011 · 1 Comment

Thank you to Pamina for alerting me to this situation. It’s not so much a reader question but rather an important discussion topic.

Evergreen Acres is the last farm left in San Jose. They are petting farm and goat farm.

Recently the California Department of Food and Agriculture sent a letter to Evergreen Acres stating that they were violating the law by boarding, caring for and milking goats that were boarded at their farm and then giving the milk to the owners of those goats. According to the CDFA, this constituted “unlicensed manufacturing or processing for resale” of raw milk. The strangest part, however, according to the CDFA, it’s perfectly legal for Evergreen Acres to board the goat and to milk it for the owners. It becomes illegal when the owners take the milk home for their personal use. The owners are free to consume it as long as the milk stays on site. If they continue to take the milk home from their privately owned goat Evergreen Acres can face up to $10,000 in fines and up to a year in jail. 


Testing of the milk from the goat in question by a standard plate count test of bacteria scored below 50. California Law allows retail raw milk to score 15,000. 


According to Mike Hulme, who owns Evergreen Acres with his wife Jane Hulme, “There is no injury here; no one has become sick from milk produced at the farm. There have been no complaints from either the goat owners or officials in the City of San Jose. The only conclusion I can draw is that this is a politically motivated action by the district attorney and CDFA to effectively put a small family farm out of business.”  

This could cause a huge problem for a lot of us urban farmers as well as small family farms. People that share private ownership of goats or keep them even on their neighbor’s property face legal ramifications. It practically bars people from taking their own dairy products off of their property for any occasion, whether it’s food for a road trip or to have a picnic.

Fortunately that’s where the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund comes in. On behalf Evergreen Acres and the goat owners, they have filed a lawsuit against Santa Clara County and the CDFA.

The suit, filed July 22 in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, asks for a declaration by the court that Gerbode, Skiwski and Sullivan have the inalienable right to purchase, own, possess and use a goat, that they have the inalienable right to consume the raw milk produced by their goat and a declaration that they have the inalienable right to contract with the Hulmes to board, care for and milk their goats. The suit asks for a permanent injunction against the State of California and Santa Clara County preventing Defendants from commencing or continuing any enforcement action against Plaintiffs “or against anyone else in California who wishes to engage in the conduct engaged in by Plaintiffs.” 


You can read more about this here.

This obviously isn’t about keeping the public safe. It’s about denying citizens the right to choose where their food comes from and from being able to produce their own food.

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Filed Under: Current Events, Livestock, Reader Questions Tagged With: ,

Building a Turkey Town for $50 or less in 3 Hours

Posted on August 24, 2011 · 4 Comments

Turkey Town, I love saying it.

So when getting livestock you should have some kind of shelter fro them. When we decided to get Turkeys we got them as poults (day old babies). That part was easy aswe just housed them in a old dog crate turned into a brooder for a couple of months.

Then they started to get big so we had to come up with some kind of housing. That’s where Turkey Town comes in. I started to think about what type of housing to build that cost the least. The first thing that I thought of was a big shipping crate. I found one behind a wine shipping business and asked them if they were planning on keeping it. Unfortunately for us they were. The second option was to build one from the ground up. Too costly and we try to avoid using new materials whenever possible.

Then I was at work one day and got to thinking about how to get rid of the pallets that were stacked out bock of our warehouse. And that’s when it hit me. I could build something out of pallets. The first thing was finding the right pallets. What i did was look for the ones that where exactly the same size, and how many I would need.

 
I figured that I needed about 10 pallets. Starting out with 2 on the right side and 2 on the left side, 4 for the back side and 2 more on the front. By using old scrap 2 x 4′s cut into 1 foot piece’s that I found in the yard I then attached the pallets together along the inside framing. Then I attach the sides to the back wall, then to the front.

Now with a little thought into it I had to come up with some structural support or all this work would be for nothing. With about $50 worth of materials I got ten 2 x 4′s x 8′ and 2 pieces of plywood 1/2 inch thick and started framing.

Don’t forget the chicken wire. 

I put in two foraged branches, one at 2′ and one at 4′ high. We lined the inside with free burlap sacks that we got at the local recycler to help block our strong winds and to stop the rain from coming inside.

3 hours later and I’m done with Turkey Town v1.0.

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Filed Under: Livestock, Turkeys Tagged With:

Flickr of Inspiration – Even Hello Kitty is a Bad Ass

Posted on August 23, 2011 · 7 Comments
hello-kitty-ar-15-rifle-2[1], originally uploaded by D-Brown!.

Remember Saturday’s post about gardening being girly? Well, apparently Ms. Aloi didn’t see this! A Hello Kitty AR-15. Now you can blog about being a bad ass and Hello Kitty all at the same time….I foresee a new blog soon. Stay tuned.

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Filed Under: Miscellaneous

The Real Dirt of Farmer John

Posted on August 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Being from a counterculture, appreciating art and wanting to farm I really enjoyed this movie. It even made me cry.

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Filed Under: Miscellaneous
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