Making Blackberry Mead

A bunch of people came over yesterday to pick blackberries, and to make some blackberry mead.

Sebastian, Janell, and Sandi have all been making honey wines for a while, so they schooled the rest of us.

We picked a ton of blackberries--some of which are pictured above with some edible flowers we threw in for good measure (borage, nasturtiums, anise hyssop, and calendula.

There was lots of gossip, laughter and singing as we picked, including some impressive renditions of Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers hits.

We mashed the blackberries up by hand, and then mixed the mash with local honey and water and poured the whole mix into a 6-gallon carboy. If all the fermentation goes as plan, we'll drink this mead at winter solstice.

For more information on making mead and other "wild" ferments, see Sandor Ellix Katz's website: wildfermentation.com.

For mead recipes galore, see this link...






As you can see, things got increasingly sticky...

Shooting stars, feasting local, and other miscellaneous updates

Sunday eve we hosted a shindig for 3 friends who are all former WNC residents who now live in the Bay Area....it was a delightful gathering, including a hearty feast of mostly local food.

We had potato salad with celery and chives from the garden, green bean salad with fresh dill, a big giant green salad from the garden (some of the elements of which are pictured above) with edible flowers, beets and radishes, and fresh herbs, 4 different kinds of local cheeses including Spinning Spider's brie-like Camille (baked with local honey on top--haysuess!), bread from Loafchild Bakery and from Annie's, roasted garlic from the garden, and a big omelet with broccoli and basil and oregano from the garden. All of the produce that we didn't grow came from the farmer's market. Woohoo! Summer is here.

After lots of indoor and outdoor merriment, people started to trickle off to their homes, including none other than Dana-Dee of blogosphere fame. While hugging her good-bye, I looked up to the night sky and saw a shooting star right streak downward right at that instant! As you will read on D's blog, it was quite special and blogworthy.

"Off The Grid" 30 days

I came across this on hulu:

... the series is by Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" and this episode features humanure and sheetmulching among other things...

July gardening....

Planting the last of the black beans tonight....after much very butch digging by Solon and Topher last eve (looking quite enthusiastic at right).

And the garden is busting out...see pictures below including very beautiful orange poppies...last night we had the first of the zephyr squash, with sauteed squash blossoms. Yum.

The Dreaded Spotted Cucumber Beetle

We are watching our squash and cucumber plants like hawks...looking out for the D.S.C.B.

They are not picky eaters at all--they will of course eat cucumbers, as their name suggests, but also squash and melons and even hawthorn leaves. I'm very protective of my Zephyr squash that's just starting to come in, so I've been vigilant about the beetles.

More than vigilant. More like a beetlecidal maniac. I prowl the rows, capturing and crushing. There are very few now, but I don't want them to make it to the point in their 6- to 9- week life cycle where they make more beetles. Only two showed themselves today, and both met quick deaths by squishing.

There seems to be some interesting research on drenching the soil with rhizobacteria, which simultaneously promotes plant growth and decreases the production of the phytochemical that encourages the beetles to feed. There are no innoculant blends yet, but it seems like such a great idea--stacking functions--to add beneficial bacteria to the soil and discourage beetles at the same time. There aren't any organic pesticides that are specific to the D.S.C.B. -- just broad spectrum pesticides that would kill beneficials too.

So for now it is prowl and squish. Wish me luck.

Living Wealth: David Korten

A friend of mine just sent me a great article by David Korten (at left) about the concept of Living Wealth. It's coincidental timing, because I've been reading Joanna Macy, and Korten and Macy work together on the concept of The Great Turning.

In any case, the article is a great overview of the kind of shift in our ways of thinking about wealth and prosperity that is so critical in this moment. Here's a snip from the Korten article:

"Real wealth is created by investing in the human capital of productive people, the social capital of caring relationships, and the natural capital of healthy ecosystems."

Read the whole article here: Living Wealth

More on garlic....

All week, CF has been digging garlic. We've tied up garlic with various friends and family as it's been harvested, and there is now a formidable amount hanging on the north side of our house under the porch roof (some of which is pictured at left).

I thought it merited a couple more photos ... here's my dad and Christopher and some German Brown that they dug and hung.

There's still more in the ground, but I imagine it will all be harvested by the first of July...