Planting Directly Into Grass...No Till Peas??

Purple Hull peas, that is...

food not instead of the lawn, but smack IN the lawn??

I'm on a mission to find more purple hull peas and bush type beans and cowpeas, except I just don't want to pay Big Box store prices for individual packets. I had to hunt and hunt to find a Farm Supply store (over an hour away!) that sells farm seed by the pound...the southern girl in me has just exploded this spring (it ain't pretty, folks...ha!) and I'm so SO excited by our success in seeing the few dozens of bush-type Roma green beans come up like gangbusters, I want to plant more, more, MORE...

(they're qualifying as Robbyn-proof so far...no fuss, fairly bug-proof, endures weather extremes and not-so-fertile soil and still are growing strong...WOO!)

I'm jazzed!!!

And I'm hungry for food that is good for me.

I'm very surprised that with the necessity of keeping things simple due to our work demands away from home, I'm reverting back to the handful of crops that kept me fed during the country part of my childhood.......the old southern standbys.

I SHALL have the other things, too...we'll add them in yearly, a couple at a time, and keep going with what we already have. But I need to eat in the meantime, and the things I know we grew under punishing conditions in the deep south of my youth were simple...they were what we found at the farm supply store:

Bush green beans, purple hull and other cowpeas, bush limas, tomatoes, scallions, yellow squash, zucchini, okra. Yeah, we had corn, eggplant, lettuces, and so on, too...but what was on the table for dinner was usually purple hull peas, squash, scallions, and tomatoes...always with cornbread.

Oh yeah, and I want sweet potatoes, too.

OK, on to the question at hand...

Today when I was looking for sources for pink-eye purple hull peas, I happened upon this article. It's worth a look, and it has pictures. Basically, it's a small write-up about a man who stakes off part of his yard each year and plants purple hull peas directly into his lawn.....NO digging, NO planting per se, NO shovel or hoe....huh? He mows his lawn, stakes off the section he wants for growing the plants, drops the seeds straight onto the area, basically walks across it to make sure the seeds make it to ground level, throws down some fertilizer, and waters it in. He waters it each day till they flourish...about fifteen days, and then the plants kind of take over their area, and he basically keeps the grass mowed around the edges.

I know...it's not the House Beautiful raked-and-staked weedless patch of perfection, but I found it SO interesting that he got a whole crop off this one patch with so little effort...and those little stinkers seem hardy to the point that they overcame the grass enough to put out a decent harvest.

For people like myself who already have access to land that's unused (we have a vacant lot next door) with only part of it under what can only loosely be termed cultivation, why shouldn't I try growing some patches of food this way instead of having to keep mowing down the wild vegetation periodically (we have to for fire issues, even if we wanted to leave it wilder.) And I can put some in areas of my existing lawn that aren't used or are a part of our "resale curb appeal." (sigh)

:)

So I called the county extension service and followed the trail to the farm supply store and can now take a little day jaunt on one of my days off to go purchase seed by the pound for the same price I'd pay for one or two packets of seed at my local retailer. I'm nostalgic for the plain food from my childhood garden...I have enough herbs and such growing in buckets that it would never lack for seasoning and dressing it up with variety.

Right now I have some limas boiling on the stove. And sweet potatoes baking.

And it looks like I have enough "lawn" next door to warrant some wild-and-crazy experiments. If growing things in the lawn is that easy, ANYone with ground surface can eat...and that's good news for people like myself who can't afford equipment, soil amendments, and a lot of extra time to go far afield for some of the less expensive or free alternatives at times. (Though we do have a lot of different kinds of those projects underway, we're just tapped out of time and money for more, like many people).

We'll see...

I'm so excited about trying this!

ECHO Global Farm Goat House

It's taken me a while to post more of our pics from the ECHO test farm tour. Their test farm is amazing and approximates several different types of climates in order to develop multi-purpose crops using low-tech sustainable methods to be used in developing countries. Many of the planting techniques and actual under-utilized plants Jack and I've been interested knowing more about are featured there...it was exciting seeing so many all in one place!

This was their goat house. There was so much to fit into the tour, and we didn't get unlimited time to poke around and measure and fiddle to our hearts' content, but here's what we were able to gather at the time...

The structure was made as a solution to many third world farmers' dilemma...how to raise goats on small land parcels without sustaining damage to crops. Goats are an important animal in many cultures, useful for milk, meat, skins, bartering, and sometimes fiber.

ECHO's goat house was their working solution: an elevated structure made of found materials or available wood. It is large enough to comfortably accomodate several small to medium-sized goats, and the wooden slats are substantial enough to be strong, and are spaced to allow for air circulation on all sides...but to keep predators out. There was a feeding trough along one side, and the slats were spaced to allow goats to extend their heads to the trough for eating forage, but not enough to allow the goats to escape.

Beneath the troughs, trimmed limbs and forage leaves/plants were piled. As the goats finished what was in the troughs, the trimmings could be easily rotated upward to refill the troughs.

It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the building was positioned raised above a dirt slope. Animal droppings fall through the floor slats to the ground below, and are raked down the underneath slope into the open to be collected and used for fertilizer. Any uneaten twigs and branches from the fodder are put into the compost pile.

We've never had goats, but know enough about them from others to know they're talented escape artists. We weren't able to study the structure to see how they're prevented from getting out, but it's obvious this structure works well and has been used successfully for some time. The goats did not seem crowded, seemed to enjoy being higher up off the ground and in the shade rather than direct sunlight. And there was no way they'd ever be standing on wet ground.

Several forages are used for them...one is moringa, a multi-use tree good for animals and humans. Here is a stand of moringa, harvested 7 times a year (if memory serves) by what seems to be a coppicing method (or is it a pollarding one?) since the tree trunks are cut at regular intervals after harvesting their quick-growing branches. These can be fed to animals such as the goats, for fodder, harvested for human consumption (leaves), or for low-tech water purification (leaves again). Here is a stand of coppiced moringa trees. The trunks are 2 to 3 feet high and the branch growth was about waist high or so.

Here is a mature moringa, a different variety than the above. This one stores water in its trunk and can endure punishing drought.

That's all for now...we enjoyed seeing their solution to the goat dilemma. Goats can easily decimate a garden, yet this goat house situated in close proximity to surrounding gardens kept the cycle beneficial to not only humans, but supplied the goats with fodder that otherwise would have been a plant waste. In eating them, the goats gained nutrition, produced fertilizer and milk, and the garden benefitted again, continuing the circle.

More ECHO fun to come, as I have time to post!

First Starts, Garden 2009

Meet our 2009 kitchen salad bar!

We hope to actually get a few things into the ground on the lot next door this year. But of course we'll continue using our containers to grow things, too. If you've read this blog at all in the past, you're likely aware we use 5 gallon buckets for a lot of the plants. Recently, I found these...

Buckets, meet bins.

There was a sale at Home Depot.

There are now fewer bins there to meet the public demand. They were too good to pass up, being that they were CHEAP, durable, deep, and much wider than, say...a five gallon bucket. Yes, I'm guilty as charged...

Jack is the green thumb around here, and due to his persistence and attention, we've still got a lot of buckets going in Bucketville. In fact, if anything bites the dust, in the time it takes for a brief moment of silence to give tribute to the casualties of our learning curves, he's usually stuck another start, seed, or volunteer plant back into the bucket as a replacement. He's enjoying the discovery of how satisfying it is to nudge little green things into a good start in life, and I enjoy seeing all his successes!

I'm getting my shot at planting a little bit right now...usually Jack is the master gardener. Who doesn't love playing in the dirt, I ask you??



Today, the bins got planted with:
leaf lettuces,
mustard,
komatsuma greens,
two kinds of table radishes,
arugula,
red kale,
and red chard...yum :)

Oh yeah, and a big thick horseradish root!

(and elsewhere, some empress nasturtiums and mammoth sunflowers... stop me, I'm outta control...)

As far as the salad plants in the bins, I planted them a little thickly so the initial ones can be thinned for baby salad greens and then the others can mature into some cut-and-come-agains for salad. Now for the waiting to see the little babies emerge :)

I started this blog journal in 2006 (hard for me to believe!) and that summer I tried growing a few tomato plants in pots, a couple of eggplants and peppers, and some lettuces in flats.

Here is a pic of those first tomatoes...(2007 brought a new camera...these are with the old one)




I experimented with different repurposed containers -- everything from milk crates lined with paper grocery bags, old boxes, box tops for flats, basically anything that would hold soil...with mixed success.



Even though a job change commenced and the lettuces and tomatoes limped along, even this small amount provided us with a fresh salad everyday and the tomatoes...not any fancy varieties, but mixed multicolored ones...outdid anything we would have normally turned to in the supermarket. The difference in tomatoes alone was amazing...it made us WANT salad :)

In 2007...well, it was an overwhelming year in some respects. When we decided not to grow a seasonal garden, I turned more to kitchen and household experiments, and Jack kept bringing home throwaway 5 gallon buckets, cleaning them, mixing up soil stuff, and putting his hand to different other outdoor leanings. The birth of Bucketville...


We made a concious decision last year not to put in a seasonal garden, but to experiment growing longer-growing things such as baby trees, tree seeds, some individual this-and-thats to see how well they'd do in our zone, and some multi-use plants we need to experiment with on a small basis to see if they're something we want more of. We also started with some herbs.

We moved on to plants indigenous to this zone worldwide...many that were native here, in fact, but have lost popularity due to convenience produce markets. We're exploring ethnic markets when we can, trying to learn different uses for the different parts of plants we'd assumed there was only one use for...experimenting with our own tastes and health needs. This has been fun!

It goes to show, we're only as limited as our imaginations most times. Things WILL grow in buckets (even ugly old paint buckets, ha!)

This year, we're back to wanting to grow some seasonal things and expanding a bit further.

Lessons learned with the container planting so far?

1. don't try to grow two tomato plants per pot (definately!),
2. boxes disintegrate quickly (which can be bad or good depending on how we're using them,
3. it pays to have good soil, and for containers to have a soil mix that drains well
4. we need a good source of compost and natural fertilizer,
5. many plants need some sheltering from our hottest sun exposure,
6. water EVERY day (here),
7. there are going to be invasions of plant-eating bugs so we need to know how to work with that, 8. it helps to have a supportive spouse,
9. if you place heavy containers right on the soil, you'll have to plan on moving them frequently to mow under them unless you've put down a barrier,
10. always place a barrier under the pot between the soil and holes in the pot or termites might decide they've found their Hilton
11. native plants are a good fit usually
12. keep roughly to our recommended planting zone
13. repeat #9 until you finally get reallllyyyyy tired of moving heavy pots back and forth
14. clay pots are expensive. we realize if we can garden on the scale we want there will be nothing on our lot but house and garden...a longer term plan must be decided upon
15. some things just aren't going to do well. Others will. We try to optimize and go with the ones that seem to grow well despite the abuses of weather and climate

Back to January 2009...

We've debated about putting in raised beds, etc, but since we're situationally up in the air with some circumstances and don't know if we'll have the house on the market in the near future, we're having to keep the lawn area more conventional rather than digging it all up (which is what we'd do if we were going to be here longer.) Blah blah blah, anyway we want reusable containers for now (that we could take with us if ever the need be), and containers can be expensive. That's why free used 5 gallon buckets filled the bill so well last year. But at over 100 of them now, my girly self is craving something more aesthetic and more surface space.

As I drool over seed catalogs, renting a tiller and planting a green manure crop for some tilth and mulch to plant into calls with its siren song. How DOES one trim a wish list from three pages to one?? ;-)

We're SO new to this...WHEN to plant, WHAT to plant, what not to do. Hopefully this year we'll work out some of the kinks.

Any advice for the new kids? I know so many of my blog-0-sphere buds out here have years and years over us in experience. What's your advice for the likes of us newbies?

Unlikely Edibles

I've mentioned some of these before, but we're reading up on it further, and will try some of these in the upcoming year to see how they might be utilized...

There are so many plants whose foliage can be utilized as food in addition to their fruits or roots. Some of those are:

Carrots
Radishes
Turnips (of course)
Beets

Ok, we knew that, I think. But here are the ones we'll be trying in the cookpot in the future to see how we might incorporate them, or at least test them, as valuable additions to our meals.

Cowpea leaves.....pink-eyed purple hull, crowders, black-eyed peas, etc. Did you know that the leaves are edible ?? I have no idea how they taste, but they're nutritious as cooked greens...who knew? Having a few rows of cowpeas not only provides some cheap and great vegetable fare, but if you can eat the leaves, it really contributes in a larger way to the harvest, and the nutrition at the dinnertable. They say you can harvest the underneath leaves as the plant grows, leaving the top ones on the plant still as the cowpease grow and develop, akin to "picking a mess of greens" when you need them. Cool!

Okra leaves...huh? those prickly things? Well, it seems that the young leaves are good chopped and included in soups. Maybe not so good sauteed, as they might have the same slime factor as the pods. But according to preliminary reading we've done so far, in soups and gumbos, the leaves are in their element. It'll be a must-try for our hot climate...we'll see how it does.

Squash and Pumpkin leaves. Again, does the taste vary according to variety? Our reading how turned up mention of the value of these leaves being used at the young stage. I'm not sure if they're used raw, but they can be cooked. I'm not sure of the taste and not sure if they're good alone or better if combined in stir fries and soups. But imagining the double-whammy of utilizing not only the squash and pumpkin fruits and blossoms as well as the leaves...well...there are a lot of leaves on those things! What if it equates to a lot more food from the garden...and another fantastic way to eat our greens? I love the idea of eating as much of the plant as possible.

Clover. Don't laugh. Animals love it, but apparently so did native human populations. We've meant to try this one but haven't yet, except fresh. The leaves are edible cooked, dried and ground as an addition to flour (think adding them into pasta-making or additions to soups), and the flowers are packed with loads of vitamin C and can be pulled apart and used in salads, or battered with tempura and flash fried.

There are more, but that's all for now...just wanted to post it quickly before I forgot! Finding the possibility of "secondary edibles" for common crops figures into our deliberations as we peruse the seed catalogs and figure out what we will try growing this year. In a sense, we're not only educating ourselves as first time gardeners, but also hoping to re-educate our assumptions as to what parts of the actual plants can be utilized. It's exciting to find the choices are vast!

Don't Throw Away Those...Onion Trimmings

Don't you love how those cooking onions shed their flaky, papery bits here and there? I seem to always find them lurking wherever I store my onions. I used to throw them away, but now I've stopped fighting the incoming tide, and I gather them instead.

Those dry outer onion skins are said to make a beautiful natural dye, ranging from pale beige to warm gold to golden brown. I think the mordant would be vinegar or alum, and in skimming the recommendations here and there online, it says wool takes the dye better than cotton. I have yet to try this, but it's on my Later On list of To-Dos. Meanwhile, I've got a 5 gallon bag full of the skins, and everytime I chop another onion, the skin goes right into this bag...



We're also experimenting with saving the trimmed-off roots...here's a pic of some just-trimmed onion and leek roots. We're just sticking them back into some pots with decent soil to see if anything sprouts from them. If so, we'll either have a perpetual onion, a smaller snack-sized onion, or compost...ha!


We did have some onions take root from the simple trimmed ends...not sure about the leeks yet, though. These leek trimmings remind me of sea anemones...

Here's one of the onion trimmings, replanted, with some regrowth...

Little bucket of experiments...

Here are a couple Jack brought in from the garden. They looked kind of rough, but after peeling down the top couple of layers, they were smooth and delicious underneath...we love fresh green onions with meals!

Uses for Onion Trimmings:

The Papery Skins --

For natural dye-making. Yellow onions yield ochre and brown-toned dyes. Purple/Red onion skins yield dyes in the redder range. These are good natural dyes with vinegar or alum as the mordant. They are said to effectively dye wool. They are also used in some traditional and non-traditional ways to dye hard-boiled eggs for craft projects. I wonder how they do in paper dyeing?

The Tough Outer Skin --

The part you have to peel away because it's too tough to chop ...these are good (washed, of course) for throwing into a ziploc freezer bag along with other veggie trimmings...carrot tops, beet tops and tips...any other veggie bits to include in making soup stock later. When you have enough, it can all be boiled and then strained off after the stock is done.

Or, if you like, off to the compost pile!

The onion tops --

If they're crunchy and tender enough, they can be used like chives as spice or garnishes. If they're little green onions, leave on the part that's tender enough to be noshed on, and only trim the very tough parts off.

The toughest parts of the onion tops can be saved with other veggie trimmings for making soup stock (discarded to the compost pile after straining off the liquid), or thrown into the compost pile.

The roots --

Well, we're experimenting with simply replanting them in pots. We've not done enough to be able to tell if this will work well every time, but we've had enough survive to create little green onions, albeit rough looking ones, that can be peeled down a couple layers and trimmed to eat in-hand as an accompaniment to sandwiches, or meals like beans and cornbread...mmm!

Let me know if you use your onion trimmings in other ways, and I'll add it to the list :)

Foraging: Pine Needle Tea

You DO want to try this, but not till it's strained. Those little guys are sharp!

We were out walking yesterday, and there was a 3 foot pine seedling within easy access in the undeveloped wilder area. I clipped the end of one of its branches, since it was in an area that is never sprayed (and looked like it was in an area that might be mowed down before too long).

I'd read that pine needles make a great tea, and that the needles as well as many other parts of the pine tree were used by native populations as food in different ways. The vitamin C content of the needles is said to be really high. In fact, if settlers had drunk it during times of want, it is said there would have been no scurvy. Linda Runyon mentions pine in her foraging handbook. Anyway, I was curious!

I washed and trimmed some of the needles, and poured boiling over them, as seen above. Then I learned an important lesson...NOT to try sipping the brew while the needles are still in it (yeah, go ahead, I know everyone else has better sense! lol) I was aiming just for a sip, not a gulp, but two of those needle bits got sipped right up with the liquid and I just about had to have an embarrassing trip to the ER, only I'd not swallowed very hard and was able to REACH DOWN MY THROAT WITH MY HAND and pull the piercing little shards out (I can see trying to explain that one, ha!) Anyway, always strain the liquid to get all the needles out first (duh) before drinking. I have enough left, and I'll follow the instructions better next time around and steep them in a PAN of boiling water for 20 minutes.

But here's the exciting part...it was DELICIOUS! I expected a turpentine or stringent taste, but it was actually GREAT tasting...very light, sweet, fragrant...I couldn't believe it! Jack said when he was in the Marines and they had to do survival exercises out in the middle of nowhere (forage, etc), he would boil pine needles and it was really satisfying. He said if we do that, you can add a touch of sugar to taste and it tastes like a very mild lemonade (didnt taste like that to me...tasted very sweet without any sugar...nice flavor!

Here are the two precautions:

1. Make sure you identify the tree properly. It HAS to be a pine. Don't take chances if you're not sure, because there are evergreens (don't remember which) that are poisonous. And also make sure it's not in an area that has been sprayed with any sort of poisons or has poison ivy/sumac/oak growing anywhere nearby.

2. Though I LOVED this (I'd drink it every day if I could), I can't drink it till I'm, ohhhh, older. Seems that there's some strong anecdotal evidence that pregnant and nursing mothers should probably steer clear of it, as well as anyone who might be pregnant at any point...the tea is said to cause miscarriages within a very short time (hmmm...) if drunk while pregnant. Since we'd welcome a baby at ANY time were I able to have one, I'd just as soon play it safe in that department. But you can bet I'll be drinking it when I'm older. A nice and pleasant surprise :)

Hooked on Kombucha

This has been a huge leap for me, but it's something as easy as making a pitcher of sweet tea...

making Kombucha.

I'm posting this article for the faint at heart...folks like ME...with pictures. As a beginner, I've had a hard time telling if my Kombucha is "ok," and I'm unfamiliar with what it's supposed to look like in its different stages. I have to admit, as an uninformed amateur, if not for the encouragement of others, I'd have taken one look at this and declared it Funky and Disgusting.

But it's ANYTHING BUT that...so here's a peek at my learning curve.

Making Kombucha is much like many other things are, and have been, in this learning process. I want to can jellies, fruits, veggies, soups...when I learn (well, re-learn) those canning skills, one of the biggest obstacles I have to overcome is my discomfort and unfamiliarity, and the fear I'm going to somehow kill off my family with some deadly pathogen lurking in a homemade product.

Maybe this is evidence of how brainwashed, or at least dependent, I've become throughout the years in trusting commercially-marketed products rather than homemade ones. I think there's a lot of fear and distrust and misinformation that has to be undone by any homesteading-minded person to even get to the point of taking that first step into the unknown and trying something new.

We did that a while back with fermented products when we found a source for yogurt cultures needing no cooking whatsoever, especially the Caspian Sea Yogurt. We used it, got the hang of it, found our comfort zone, discovered how to use it in our meals and found the range of good and bad fermentation indicators. It helped that at no point the yogurt looked weird or funky...that's not one of the stages of the yogurt fermentation process.

I was more leary about Kombucha, and was holding off on trying it indefinately till Maria generously offered to give me one of her extra starter "mushrooms" (SCOBY) and gave me really simple instructions on how to get it off to a good start. Despite my trepidations, I said Yes!

(I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't kill the little starter culture...I have kind of a knack for doing things like that)

It was at about this point that things began to pick up with Jack's mom's illness, and things got crazy around here. And it was at just that point that our little baby SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) arrived in the mail from Maria (I still have to send the Thank you note...I'm the ultimate loser of a procrastinator!!)

Don't you love getting a box delivered by the mailman? Here's what was inside, including the beautiful card...lovely!



Up close, the baby SCOBY looked like a firm, gelatinous, jelly-fish-ish round disc, and the liquid it was in smelled divine...like a floral, apple-y smell..clean and sweet. A fingertip taste-test confirmed that it had a light cider taste...mmm!

I brewed the tea, added the sugar, diluted it with water and when it reached room temperature, I added the baby SCOBY into its new home.

Ok, so I didn't have a clean tea towel, so an old clean shirt of Jack's was sacrificed to the cause... the SCOBY is floating here at the bottom, but as it fermented it straightened out to meet the edges of the container and floated at the top.



Then life hit hard. Since the SCOBY is content in its liquid at room temp for days (or more) at a time, covered with a cloth secured with a rubber band, it was left to its own devices. When I was home, I changed the liquid out every 7 to 10 days. The liquid was murky and smelled vinegary, and...I was afraid to taste the liquid. There was a white floating scum on the top of the water that I was SURE was something bad...maybe my ferment was moldy?? I laugh now to think of it, but since it was neglected in between new brews of sweet tea solution, I took white vinegar (SCOBYs like white vinegar) and "cleaned it up" each time, reserving a little liquid to include in the new batch with the growing SCOBY. Oh, dear!

Finally, I realized the white surface scum was the good stuff...it was not fuzzy or dry and not turning colors. It was the part that thickens as the little SCOBY grows bigger. I confirmed this by looking at a lot of pictures on the internet.

My SCOBY, once at home in its brew of tea, has never looked perfectly pristine and white, but one of its babies has, initially. It separated into two sections like flaky biscuits do, and the underneath "flake" was white and seamless...the upper one was beige with an irregular surface. There were dark brown hanging fibers floating from underneath, like jellyfish tentacles, and some floating fibrous bits in the liquid itself, which seemed partially murky.

Again, if it were not for the convenience of an internet comparison, I'd have chucked the whole lot out of fear I was brewing some deadly potion.

But we found YouTube videos that showed all sorts, and saw that there is quite a range of brewing techniques and differences in the appearance of the different SCOBYs. Some are a pristine white, nice and thick, while others are highly layered and of varying thicknesses. Colors ranged from Dark Beige with variations within the layers, to pale and pearly. My SCOBY has variations in it and an irregular, but smooth, surface. At no point have I seen any mold, so I relaxed. I found a suggestion of adding a few tablespoons of vinegar for added mold protection, so I've been doing that routinely now.

After Jack's mom died, we had some time off and we decided to start the Continual Brew method. We are very much trial-and-erroring our way as we go...

We purchased another glass container, this time with a spigot at the bottom, and instead of emptying the contents after every 7-10 day brew cycle, we allowed it to do its intial ferment and then have a pitcher of the sweet tea solution made up to replenish any Kombucha we pour off daily. We don't worry about measuring how much gets replaced...we keep it filled to a fill line on the jar...easy!

To say we're enjoying the continual brew Kombucha is an understatement! Here are the three containers we have going right now...

This is a second baby that we're growing, and its container of Kombucha...it has variations of opacity and transparency, but in a couple weeks it will be a thick and solid re-useable "mushroom."

Here's the original SCOBY, being coaxed from dormancy (it had been stored in the fridge for a time)..it's getting thicker and whiter... it's rather like a leathery apple-vinegary scented pancake. (Sorry for the badly focused pic)



We're hooked! In fact, I was so hooked the first day it was ready to drink, I had (should I admit this publicly??) 6 iced tea glasses of it over ice ...all in one evening. The caffiene wired me so much, I was hyper and when Jack called me from work, I was feeling goooooooood...so good he got a little worried and told me to hold off on it another couple days to make sure most of the sugar had been fermented out. I've not had another 6 glass day yet, but I'll say this is my new favorite drink!

We don't keep soft drinks in the house, or order them often, so around here it's usually water, and occasionally milk or homemade limeade. But Kombucha over ice?? perfect!!! It's tart, lightly sweet, slightly carbonated (and if you store it in the fridge a few days bottled it ramps up the carbonation further). I used to filter it so there were no "floaters" but now I pour it straight over ice right from the Kombucha container spigot.



Man, it's good!

And so our science experiments continue! Among the three containers, we should be able to keep some Kombucha drinking going on!

I feel great after drinking it, and am sleeping especially well...like a baby, with dreams in amazingly vibrant colors...the first dream was of my buying a horse for the first time in my life...he was a beauty! (in the dream...)

Warning to other diabetics...you'll need to let it ferment to the more tart stage to insure a lower sugar content.

Kombucha...and Kombucha-making has turned out to be a fun (and nutritious) addiction. I'm glad I'm somewhat past the trepidation factor. This fermented drink is quite robust and loaded with glorious probiotics..the healthy bacteria that will chase the bad bacteria in our bodies right out of town :)

More About Moringa

...today at Women Not Dabbling in Normal

Stretch-the-Veg Greens Update

Jack had surgery yesterday on his forehead, to remove a cancerous place.

Yes, the C Word...the panic-inducer, life-flashing-in-front-of-your-eyes word association. The day we found that out, I was pulling up every possible internet dietary recommendation I could get my hands on under the title Cancer Prevention. At the top of every list was the category Greens. Dark, leafy greens of every sort are a vital component of a body's cancer-and-other-diseases defense team. Those same leafy greens are something we really need to include more of in our meals around here, and that means finding ways to enjoy eating them as well as developing some garden savvy in growing them.

Thankfully, they seem to be an easy food to grow, and here in Florida, we should be able to stretch a couple of seasons and still keep them going. In colder areas, I'd imagine they could be included among other greens grown under a protective polytunnel or other crop-prolonging method.

We didn't have an active seasonal in-ground garden of any sort this year, for reasons discussed in prior posts. What we did do is begin slower-growing plants, and some herbs, trees, experimental and exotics in 5 gallon (what else?? ha) pots. We're gearing up to make decisions about what to start putting into the ground and whether we'll be seeing any daylight with our goals for relocation. So many decisions, quite a bit of waiting, and so many things that just can't wait...it's a head-scratcher sometimes trying to find ways to strike a balance.

Recently, I posted about dual-use veggies...ones commonly used for a better-known food (think beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, okra, papaya), but with the real potential of dual usage for humans for a second table food. In these cases, the second food is Greens.

We're continuing to experiment a bit with our Blood Sugar Regulator plant, Gynura procumbens/ Sambung Nyawa. Its flavor is not unpleasant, but since it is a new taste to me, I'm not used to it...and so we experiment for a better taste "fit." So far, we've had it raw in salad, steeped fresh in hot water as a tea, blanched, and a cut up and stir friend ingredient in chicken enchiladas (mmm!)

We still have 3 1/2 gallon ziplock bags full in the fridge, and I'm trying not to waste it. Tonight's inclusion was with some shredded cabbage, stir-fried in a tablespoon of olive oil with a pinch of salt and then continued briefly with the addition of a couple tablespoons water, to sort of steam/stir fry it just till the greens brighten and begin softening. I don't cook past that point...I like them tender, cooked till no longer crunchy, but no more...I can't stand pale, gray, limp overcooked cabbage.

The picture above is at the just-done point. I served this for each person tonight for dinner in a bowl, in this order: hot cooked rice, some cabbage and greens served on top of that, and a ladle of steaming Winter Squash-and- Turkey Soup over all. Yum!


Over at a recent entry on Duane Marcus' blog The Funny Farm, he's written about finding another wonderful Asian green called Komatsuna. It is said to be delicious eaten for its greens as well as its stalks, which can be substituted fresh for celery. I've never tried it, but he says his customers enjoy it, and gives it great reviews for its hardiness and ability to withstand some cold weather as well as heat without bolting. It's a warmer zone plant, so we'll be looking into it for sure. Thanks for the heads-up, Duane!

Secondary Edibles: Greens

In researching some necessary changes in our diets both presently and for future days on the homestead we're working to purchase, we've become aware of the role greens should be playing. A vital source of quality nutrition, greens are for the most part easy to grow, and often overlooked (at least by us).

I've never really grown greens, aside in our childhood garden where we grew kale, chard, some leaf lettuces, and turnip greens. Others grew collards. All are delicious in some form, especially when accompanied with a hot buttery hunk of cornbread...mmm!

Lately, we've noticed in our investigation of different plants friendly to this growing zone (9) that some plants know as foods in other ways also have edible leaves or stems. This would make these foods a dual-use food, in addition to their value after harvest as a compost or mulch ingredient.

Vegetables with secondary edible parts sometimes require specific cooking or preparation, and the flavor may vary from appealing to unappetizing. However, it must be kept in mind that whole cultures have utilized parts of plants Americans are unfamiliar with. If prepared properly, many greens untraditional to western tables can be harvested and enjoyed, as well as their nutritional boost.

We're trying to utilize our plants, and plan for future crops, with multi-use in mind. Some may be animal fodder, mulch, fertilizer, companion plants or beneficial insect attractors as well as a great crop for our own eating. Whatever plants we can eat, if we can find multiple parts of the plant that are edible, we'll be trying it!

Here is a small list of some such plants that we've read have edible greens in addition to their primary crop fruit or vegetable:

1. Okra...leaves can be used as greens. Do they have to be young leaves, or prepared a certain way? We're still researching that.

2. Sweet potatoes. Ditto. Leaves and stems are said to be edible as boiled greens...flavor depending on variety, some varieties pleasant and other not

3. Papaya. (Baby papayas shown below) Young leaves steamed and eaten like spinach in some parts of Asia.




4. Malanga. (Shown below)Ditto #3.



5. Mints. (Some shown below, among drying herbs) They're primarily an herb, and used as such, but we enjoy them not only as a spice/condiment, but also stir-fried into other greens such as spinach, with some salt ...really brightens the taste!



6. Gynura Procumbens/Sambung Nyawa/Bloodsugar plant. (Shown below, just after trimming back...we harvest 5 gallons of leaves!) We use these as a tea, but prefer them as greens. They can be used as a food, not just a medicinal.



7. Beet greens/Turnip greens. Others use both root and leaves regularly. I simply love beet greens!

8. Snap beans and Lima beans. We've never tried either. We'll research this some more and actually try some cooked different ways before recommending them. But we saw it on a list and if it's true and they taste fine cooked (and are safe!) then wow, what a great double use for these!

9. Squash. Again, young leaves said to be edible if cooked..I'm assuming boiled or sauteed. Again, would need to try!

10. Red Clover. The flower heads and the leaves are both edible. Leaves are said to be very rich in nutrients and protein, and we'll be trying them both raw in salads and cooked with other greens.

Ok, that's all for now.

We'd LOVE to know if you know any dual-use plants that can be harvested for greens, and how you prepare them for eating. Have you tried any of the above? We'd love to hear from the voices of experience while also trying out hand at some.

Don't forget...before trying anything ALWAYS read read read and KNOW it's safe before beginning. Same thing for testing for allergies...be very careful!

Don't take my word for any of these things before doing your own research.

If we find success with these, we'll give a full report :)

Doing Not Thinking Challenge

Better late than never!!

I'm a tardy latecomer, but I'm taking on Kathie's Doing Not Thinking challenge. For some background on what led to this challenge, you'll enjoy this earlier post she wrote. Not just thought-provoking, but action-inspiring!

Whether it's mental list-making, day-dreaming of all the things I know I want to do (which leapfrogs to so many other things I want to do, most of which I've dreamed but never just DONE), or getting sucked into the vortex of busy-ness it takes to maintain this crazy thing called My Life, I need to be more deliberate, more organized, and more focused on actually getting past those stopping-points and actually DOING some of those goals...and some of the neglected things like my housework (cough cough!)

Doing my housework more consistently needs to be a daily habit, so it's not going on the list. I want it to be done before the "extras" because it's important to my whole household. I've done quite a bit of digging out during my hiatus, but have more to go to get it deep-cleaned.

Same thing goes for my relationship with my husband and the time spent with him and with my daughter. In that area, I'm simpy shutting off the computer. Shutting. It. Off.

I'll be blogging less frequently, but deliberately making the most of the time with my family. Writing is important to me, and Jack really wants me to continue posting here, and I agree. But I don't want backwards priorities...I waited so long for him, and when he came into my life I knew I wanted to make each moment count, at least as much as possible (I fall really short quite often). I just don't have the time to do everything, so if you don't see me visiting around my favorite blogs (yours!!) please don't take it personally! There will be times when I'll be able to indulge, when I'm less crazed ;-)

Anyway, I do have room for a challenge! Here are the things I'm challenging myself to accomplish by the December deadline Kathie posted:

Short term goal…save my change from any monetary transaction and put it in a jar…at the deadline, any money I have will be used to do a micro-loan (cycling back and being reinvested in the same thing when paid back) for Kiva.org…to help individuals acquire animals or goods for handmade/homegrown/home-raised products to support themselves.

Longer goal…2 of them
1. Lose 10 lbs by the deadline
2. Keep doing what we can weekly toward finding our homestead…no matter what...the legwork, research, homework, phone-calling, being cheerful despite changes of direction. No wallowing in discouragement allowed! I want to compare the progress then to where we are now...

That's it for me...it's not too late to join the challenge, if you find you'd enjoy pushing past the thinking stage and get right down to the doing part of one or two goals you've had on the burner. To see what some other folks are doing, or to jump in yourself, you can check out the post here.

Come December, it'll be fun comparing notes :)

Milo

These are the seed heads Jack trimmed off the stalks we have growing in some of the buckets. He transplanted them from under the bird feeder because they were thriving, and he wanted to see exactly what they were and what sort of plant they'd form. It appears we have milo, or grain sorghum.

Can anyone confirm this for us? I have no idea what the difference between grain sorghum and the sort you use for syrup is, if any.



These few trimmed stalks (shown in the picture, behind the potted fig) have gone nuts in the summer heat here, enduring under-watering, over-watering, and outright neglect. They keep putting out more seed heads, and they are hardy as can be. The insects haven't messed with them, and though some of the leaf stalks get brownish, the plant itself seems to be indestructible.



If this is milo, it appears we have happened onto something that would grow really well down here, and possibly provide some additional fodder for livestock, and even a grain for us to grind for breadmaking or porridge. If anyone is familiar with this and knows of its practical uses, we'd love to know!

If it is milo, here's a link we found that piqued our interest.

Ricotta, My Whey

I'm from Memphis...sorry, I couldn't resist! ;-)

Caspian Sea Yogurt, and What to do with the Whey

We're back to making Caspian Sea Yogurt. What's interesting is that our original live CSY culture was purchased (via internet)during the cooler spring months. It didn't get as hot during shipment as the culture we recently purchases did.

The yogurt produced from the milder-weather shipment was itself very mild, and had a unique honey-like consistency when poured. It endured a range of temps and fermentation times, and to make it was as easy as adding one part culture to 5 parts milk, any sort. We poured it into clean mason jars, covered each with a coffee filter and jar ring, and set them on top of the fridge to ferment anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. The consistency of the resulting yogurts ranged from a thin cream-type consistency to thicker, denser yet "slick" honey-type pourable yogurt. If we over-fermented some of it, it began separating into strata of solids and whey, and all we had to do was insert a knife or such down the side of the jar and pour off (and collect) the clearish whey liquid while the thicker solids remained in the jar. We stirred up the solids (which were not in fact solid, but just very thick yogurt) and store all in the fridge.

It was the perfect self-perpetuation yogurt, though it did not have the taste or consistency of what we'd come to think of as yogurt from the supermarket. This was more or less like cream, with a different viscosity, and Caspian Sea Yogurt is so mild, it's adaptable to eating straight or in almost anything else...smoothies, over granola or cooked oatmeal, you name it.

I grew to enjoy it, and Jack absolutely loved it...in fact, craved it.

Then I killed off my culture :(

I left the jars on top of the fridge too long, too many repeated times, and also began mainly culturing the new batches with the whey...which is ok but I won't ever do exclusively any more. The end result is that there was no middle ground final product...all the CSY became solid and whey, half one and half the other, and was very very tart...a sure sign it was over-fermented. After a while, every batch was just too sour to enjoy eating, though not dangerous to consume. More and more batches went out to be poured at the base of our potted fig tree. Eventually, I faced the music and discontinued making the CSY till we could get a fresh starter culture.

I started making the CSY again a week or two ago, and the starter culture was shipped during excessively hot weather. I suspect that would explain the different consistency of my former CSY and the ones I'm making now. But thankfully, till we can order another in the cooler months of winter, this CSY still has much to love about it...no cooking, no fuss, delicious...just with a bit of a different consistency than the first batch..not as "honey-like" to pour and quicker to form solids and whey. That's my first clue it could easily over-ferment, so I'm keeping diligent watch on the hours I leave them atop the fridge, before removing them to the fridge to halt the fermentation.



There is still some whey produced, and I pour it off after it's been chilled (easier then)and save it. Some of the solids make their way there, too, in with the poured-off watery whey. Whey is very tart and if you pour it off the CSY, the CSY is very mild and goes with more things.

So....what to do with the whey? If it is kept as is, it's still alive with probiotics...good bacteria that pump up the body's defense systems and increase immunity and digestion. However, I wanted to explore more uses.

It's said to be a good hair and body rinse, but I haven't tried that yet.

I saw mention that whey from cheesemaking can be used to make ricotta, and I wondered if the CSY whey would work as well, even though CSY is not a cooked hard cheese. The instructions were easy, so today I tried it out, just to see what would happen.

Making Ricotta from Caspian Sea Yogurt Whey

The instructions said to heat whey to 200 F degrees, stirring occasionally, then to line a colander with a clean pillowcase (or very tightly woven cheesecloth, not regular cheesecloth) and drain it through itand allow it to drain. Sounds easy!



I had heated 3 quarts of whey (shown in picture above), which had some CSY solids in it. At the end of the heating period (a few minutes)it foamed up and had to be stirred down. I settled a pillowcase-lined colander over a separate stockpot and poured the heated whey through it. Most of the liquid went straight through, and at first I thought there wouldn't be anything to show for the experiment. But with a rubber spatula, I gently scraped the fabric and there was a little something there...some ricotta. Yayy! Could it be that easy?



I let it drain a couple of minutes and scraped it together into a small pile. It probably made 3/4 - 1 cup, and was nicely moist. If I'd wanted it dry, I'd simply drain it longer. I lightly salted it, as the instructions suggested, and the flavor was delightfully mild and delicious! Refrigerated, it can be used over salads, to stuff pastas, to add to cheesecakes and sweet creamcheese desserts, or with chopped herbs for a spread for crackers or crusty dark homemade bread. I tasted it on whole grain crackers and nothing else, and it was great!



So ricotta can be as easy as Heat, Strain, and eat...who knew???

Are there any of you out there making Caspian Sea Yogurt? I wonder if kefir whey would also work...anyone tried it? One of the nicest things about fermented milk products is the ability to experiment and come up with really useful, easy, and delicious foods!

Old Wives' Tale?

I can't seem to find anything on the internet about this, and I find it interesting.

Jack's mother is really good at growing things, and one of the things she's always had in her sub-tropical zone backyard is papaya trees. She has a few tricks she uses to have success in their bearing fruit, it seems...

Her advice to Jack, after being consulted about our non-bearing papaya trees goes like this:

1. Stick a sharp nail well into the trunk, then remove it.

2. Take a portion of a papaya leaf and bind it over the nail hole so that it won't get infected.



She said if we do that, that some of the trees should "change" reproductively, and we'll find that it/they will begin producing fruit.



Will it work? What is the science behind this?

I can't find anything on the internet, but I'm putting it here on this post. Let's see what happens!

(I don't even particularly LIKE papaya fruits, but Jack loves them, and they are great chicken feed...for when we have chickens. Plus they're great marinades for tenderizing meats, and I imagine there are salsas, etc they'd be good in. They're good for me, so I'll likely eat some anyway. They seem to grow like crazy down here without too much fuss, so who can pass up an easy-to-grow fruit?) :)

Coffee Arabica

What the best thing about coffee...the smell or the taste? I like the taste, but I looooove the fragrance that fills the house as it brews.

Jack and I are not big coffee drinkers, but we're coffee admirers. We enjoy coffee like we do wine...occasionally.

The other day, Jack returned home from a rash of errand-tending stops, and mentioned he had picked up another plant...on sale, of course...because it had looked so lonely and besides, you KNOW we can grow it here....

Heehee...we're pretty awful at sticking to any moratorium on collecting more useful plants.

It turns out he found a 4 1/2 foot coffee tree for $12, which is an unusually affordable price in our location here, especially for that size tree. By the time the end of the week came along, we'd bought the remaining 3 coffee trees they still had, still at the low sales price. I really hope we can make a go of these, because they are really healthy, good specimens...and one already had berries!

Our mango has gotten sunburned and stressed in the extreme temps, and about half of each leaf has turned brown. We brought it onto the lanai, out of the direct sun. That's where the 4 coffee trees now reside, because they're supposed to be shade-loving but are supposed to be hardy in our zone and in even hotter zones. I'm holding my breath that we can keep them healthy. They can't get below 68 degrees in the winter, supposedly, so we'll always need to keep them sheltered in the winter. I hope we know what we're doing!

Here's a pic of the first of the coffee arabica berries. Each berry, when ripe, should yield 2 coffee beans apiece.



Here you can see the one of the coffees snuggled up against the crispy brown (recovering) mango...


Jack's mother is from Cuba and once a year she used to go to a friend's country plot, where he raised fruits and vegetables...and had coffee trees. A single picking of a single coffee tree would net her a brown grocery sack full to the top with the ripe berries, which she would take home. This was during a time in which luxury items, such as coffee, were quite scarce there. It would take some days, or perhaps weeks, for her to process the coffee all the way to the roasting of the beans. Then she would divide up the precious commodity into small parcels and use it as barter power on the active (underground?) trading that went on privately, despite the communist restrictions. She kept aside enough for her family for one year, and still had enough left to barter.

The main breakfast of many Cubans at that stage was a cup of strong coffee with milk, and a piece of Cuban bread, a bread that came over with Cuba's predominantly European settlers early on straight from the French Baguette tradition, only Cuban bread is a bit wider all told. It's sold here regularly in the supermarket, and is quite addictive, as it's fresh-baked daily.

Jack and I are not usually daily coffee drinkers, but he has a preference for farmer-grown coffee roasted in oil in a big skillet and an open fire...he says he'll definately drink it if we can get it to that point. Well, let's see!

If we're fortunate to get even one of the treelings to the productivity point, we should garner enough beans to have a year's supply, and likely have some for friends to experiment with, too...or at least that's the hope! In that event, I'll be consulting my online friend, Christina, at CoffeeCoffeeCoffee, who I know is a confirmed coffee-a-holic! She has her own cottage business selling organic coffees, and I've posted her link on the sidebar in case other coffee lovers would like to venture her way for a cuppa joe.

If you've had any experience growing coffee trees yourself, I'd love any tips and advice you might have. I hope these trees can survive our learning curve :)

Coffee cup pic from http://www.topnews.in/health/files/Cup-Of-Coffee.JPG

Trying a Little Blog Experiment

I'm trying a Technorati experiment after reading Christina's recent post. Let's see if I can do it right. I have two left thumbs when it comes to doing anything beyond Remedial Computer 101.

The steps listed are:

1. Copy The List Below into a blog post of yours.
2. Add Your Link To The List
3. Comment on this post and leave your links so the web crawlers can get to your blog and at the same time, leave your comment and links to the original post so your blog will be included on the master list. Got to include your blog on the master list.
4. Watch Your Authority Sky-Rocket..

Anyone want to try this? I'm curious...

Below is the copied portion...
*–Copy Here - Technorati Authority–*1. Brad Blogging.com - Daily Blog Tips For The Masses
2. Daily Blogging Tips At The Daily Rambler
3. Blog Chews - Blog About Anything
4. Steve v4.6 - Big Made Small
5. GIVEAWAY CITY
6. Indo Contest.com - Find the Latest Contest Here
7. POTPOLITICS-We Smoke the Competition
8. ATA - AskTheAdmin.com
9. Dolly’s Daily Diary
10. The Tech Juice - Tech Tips And More
11. Wendy’s OBA, Blog Tips & Tricks
12. Wendy’s Reel - Fact And Fancy
13. A Grateful Heart
14. 50+Whatever..Just some Ramblings in Life
16. The Blog for DesignCreatology
17. Contest Whiz - The Blog Contest Expert
18. About Blog Contests
19. Esmeraldasblog - Como aumentar la Authority de Technorati
20. Best Widgets for free - Blog Widgets
21. New life by Pitonizza
22. Todo Seiya - Como aumentar la Authority de Technorati
23. Blog for Spanish Readers
24. The Blogger And The Blog
25. Hero Help
26. Makmalcyber
27. Forex Study
28. Techyplus
29. 8
30. Darn Good Reviews
31. Blogger Tips - DotBlogger
32. Lilyruths This and That
33. That Blog 4 Me
34. Pinoytek - Make Money Online and SEO Blog
35. Snigit(blogspot)
36. Snigit(.com)
37. Best Of The Web
38. Swat the Fly
39. Area3000
40. Shut Up And Eat
41. Find Torrent Blog
42. Cebu in the World
43. Web Design
44. Trestin Adventures
45. Ask Trestin
46. Trestin Autobiography
47. Trestin Ideas
48. Trestin Gallery
49. Trestin Games
50.(Impressive Results!) Trestin Hall Of Fame
51. Trestin History
52. Parnell Forever
53. Trestin Political
54. Trestin Spiritual
55. Trestin Sports
56. Trestin Store - Yep, Each One Of These Are Different Blogs.
57. The Ordinary Agung
58. Il blog di Luca Marchi
59. What About Brazil?
60. Shri Rada Blog
61. Hawaiian Travel Blog
62. Hawaii Cruise Superstore
63. GadgetHeat!
64. Over The Sky
65. Yavinator log
66. I Travel to Work do you?
67. The Home Page of Tony Smith, Writer of Comic Books, Articles & Screenplays
68. Ultimate Credit Online
69. The Rhythm of Write
70. A Hoosier Family
71. Analyzed Marketing Solutions
72. O2S Media
73. Project Swole - Fitness and Nutrition
74. Life is simple, Don’t make it complicated
75. Yet Another Blog from Marco Ciacci
76. Freebies, Making money and More
77. Babysitter On Board
78.Vhiel’s Corner
79. Anything and Everything in Between
80. Designs By Vhiel
81. Can of Thoughts
82. Only in Silence
83. Everything Nice!
84.Reference Notes
85. It’s a woman’s world!
86. Ramki’s Blog
87. THE MOM WITH BROWNIES
88. Picture Clusters
89. Maiylah’s Snippets
90. My Wanderings
91. Confessions of a Supermodel Wannabe
92. Tiklaton: We are the Witness!
93. Aeirin Collections
94. The Big Dog
95. O’Joy of my life…
96. Through the Rain
97. More Than A Mom
98. Say Cheese
99. The Journey
AWESOME! TRIPLE DIGITS! 100. Photo Hook
101. Life Quest
102. Dew Drops - Making Sense… Somehow
103. The Small Business Marketing Blog
104. TheSuburbanFarmer
105. Konaini Blog
106. Worldly Economic Thoughts
107. Esperto Seo
108. gd labs gianfranco davide reppucci Blog
109. insidetheworld Italian Linux and Security Blog team
110. The Back Forty
Copy This and add your link. Don't forget to post at the HERE and at the original post!

OK, Christina...hope I did it correctly :)

Teff: An Alternate Grain

This post'll have to be quick..I'm headed to work soon.

I'm hearing a lot of mention about experimentation growing grains from home. With food prices and availability being what they are (and not appearing to be headed the other direction any time soon), we're all having to consider moving our supplier from the supermarket to our own backyards. This is comfortable for us to a point, but what about growing grains and things we'd usually buy in bulk from a larger source?

I just wanted to post something about the grain, Teff. It's something I ran across when glutting myself with gorgeous reading on native/traditional foods of Africa and the Middle East. Teff is an ancient grain with the distinction of being very low gluten. But you had me at "ancient."

What's great about low gluten? There are a lot of folks out here with a sensitivity to higher gluten grains such as wheat. My sis has recently been diagnosed with such sensitivities...some are downright allergic to gluten.

Another interesting thing is that Teff is Ethiopia's primary traditional grain...the fermented flatbread that's really more like a pancakey crepe is called Injera. It's cooked on a griddle and used by hand in lieu of a untensil to carefully pick up bites of cooked food (and it's juices)and eat them. I had some Injera at an Ethiopian restaurant, and it was served where you could use it to select bites from a communal (at your own table) dish of stewed meat or vegetables...delicious!

In reading more about Teff, it seems it's been making its way closer to home. Teff grains are not its only virtue...the plant itself makes a good fodder plant. I know it's being grown in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the brief research I've seen has shown it seems to be able to weather both wet weather and conditions as well as droughts.

I love exploring "ancient" plants, and I'm looking for some teff grains to test in our kitchen, especially to ferment some batches of Injera, which looks very straightforward and easy. The fact it's adaptable to extending the growing season and to be a good forage for livestock is an added bonus. I can see us doing a test plot soon if it's really that adaptable.

If you've had any experience with this grain, we'd love to hear from you! If you experiment with it, we'd love to hear your adventures :)