This Imperfect Plot

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August 9th, 2012

Continuing on my path of discovering fermentation, last night I started my first batch of sauerkraut.

The hardest part of making sauerkraut so far has been finding a crock to let it ferment in. I found expensive crocks online. I found utensil crocks from China at a nearby kitchen store. But it wasn’t until I visited a place called Good’s Store on the edge of Amish country that I finally found the crock of my fermenting dreams. For $13 I bought a new one-gallon clay crock made in the USA by Burley Clay Products.

The rest of the process was easy.

I sliced up two heads of cabbage—one purple, one green—and mixed it up in a large bowl with 4 or 5 tablespoons of sea salt. Almost immediately the salt began pulling the water from the cabbage through osmosis. When all my cabbage was chopped, I packed it tightly into the crock, and watched in amazement as the brine developed.

I placed a small plate on top of the cabbage and placed a bottle of water on top of the plate, which all works to keep the cabbage below the surface of the brine. I covered the whole thing with a dishtowel and put it aside to let the fermentation begin. I’ll check it everyday and in a week or so I’ll start tasting it.

As I mentioned before in my post about pickles, my fascination with fermentation is a result of my hearing Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Sandor Katz. I bought Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation, which has inspired me to move beyond pickles. The book is an amazing collection of stories, techniques, and recipes that have given me a much broader understanding of the fermentation process, as well as the courage to put that understanding into practice.

But I won’t stop at sauerkraut. In fact, after I set the crock of kraut aside last night, I began boiling raw milk to make a simple farmer cheese, another astoundingly simple process.

I brought 3 pints of raw cow’s milk (from nearby Camphill Village Kimberton Hills dairy) to a slow boil. After removing from the heat, I slowly stirred in 3/16 cup white vinegar, which caused the milk to curdle. I poured the separated curds and whey through a basket strainer covered with cheesecloth into a bowl. The whey ended up in the bowl and I was left with the curds, which I sprinkled with some sea salt. I took the corners of the cheesecloth and pulled the curds into a ball to expunge the excess whey. And there you go: Farmer Cheese.

I’ll eat some tonight for dinner with a delicious tomato salad.

Speaking of which, my garden is pushing tomatoes now. Here’s what I harvested last night after putting the kids to bed. Brandywine, Cosmonaut Volkov, Green Zebra, Indigo Rose, and Amish Paste.

There is a lot of real estate opening up in my garden lately. The zukes and cukes are done, the victims of squash bugs and cucumber beetles. The corn is finishing up this week, and my carrots will be coming out this week too. So what’s next for this imperfect plot? Fall brassicas. Please join me in welcoming this year’s Brussels, Broccoli, Cabbage, and Kale. We’ll also be planting more peas and more bush beans.

And maybe, just maybe, this will be the year I set up a cold frame.

Tags: fall garden, farmer cheese, fermentation, sauerkraut

December 1st, 2011

Where does the time go? December all ready. Let me try to catch you up.

My fall garden, for which I had high hopes in early September, never really came to fruition. I planted a row of beans, a row of kale, a 6×4 bed of carrots, a 4×4 bed of turnips, I planted a few rows of mache, and a few rows of spinach. A pretty good fall garden, right?

Well, I guess I can be too disappointed. I should listen to my own advice. This is my standard piece of advice for new gardeners: Keep you hopes high, but your expectations low.

I’m not sure of the exact rainfall totals, but I know it felt like it rained on my garden everyday from mid-August to late September. My little seeds never really had a chance to do their thing.

Sure, some did. I have exactly 7 carrot sprouts, 2 turnips, about 7 kale plants (I planted three varieties, but only one sprouted), zero beans, zero spinach, and a handful of mache.

I am thankful for what I have. And there is a chance that my seeds will over winter and I’ll have some good things growing early next March.

That’s’ the update on the garden. So much more has happened that you may or may not be aware of or actually care about, but nothing is stopping me from giving you a quick photographic tour of the past few months. Follow me.

We found this bold-faced hornets’ nest hanging in our apple tree. These critters get aggressive in the late summer and early fall, so your best bet is to keep your distance. But once a frost hits, the hornets die off and you can collect the nest for a unique conversation starter. This nest is hanging in my barn now, but I might haul it to work to hang in my office.

I’m proud of the parsley we grew. This is all from the seeds my daughter and i started in the basement last April. We spread it all out on a large sheet of paper. It took a few weeks, but it’s dry now. It should be enough to last us through the winter.

Here’s my fall garden—after a freak October snow storm!

Sadly, we lost this giant oak tree in the October snow. Wet snow on autumn leaves throws off the balance of things.

Click to view a larger image.

We have an old summer kitchen behind our house. It’s been overrun by trumpet vine, a native, yet aggressive vine. It gets beautiful reddish trumpet-shaped flowers that attract humming birds, but I felt compelled to take it down a notch.

And finally, here’s me and my kiddo at the Christmas tree farm near our house. Check out my guest blog at Kiwi Magazine for my 8 Reasons to Cut Down Your Own Christmas Tree.

OK, now you’re all caught up. I’ll try to be more regular with my blogging. -eh

Tags: christmas tree, fall garden, kale, parsely, snow