Adventures and Misadventures in Fermentation

Experimenting with fermentation over the years, I've learned that you win some and you lose some. And then there are the ones that you really, really lose.

When something that has just been fermenting for a few days or weeks goes awry, it's no big deal. But when it's been a lengthy, elaborate, labor-intensive process involving a months and months of fermentation...then I turn for comfort to pop-psychology clichés about learning to let go and tired yet soothing bromides such as "life is a journey, not a destination."

Last fall we borrowed a cider press, our farm interns Ali and Dau gleaned a whole bunch of apples from a neglected nearby orchard, and six of us spent an afternoon making fresh apple cider.

First the apples had to be chopped into a mash.

Then came the pressing. Lots and lots of pressing.

What was left of the apples after the pressing

Then came the straining.

Fortunately, at that point we drank quite a bit of fresh cider on the spot and bottled up a bunch for drinking fresh in the week to come. It was ridiculously good.

The last three gallons of cider we set aside for fermentation into hard cider. Two gallons were poured into glass gallon jugs with a plastic bag/rubber band lid for a controlled fermentation and the last gallon we fermented in a cloth-covered crock for a "spontaneous" hard cider a-la Wild Fermentation.

The spontaneous cider was awful. We still have a dozen or so bottles of it around because I hold on to the notion that aging in the bottle might improve it and I can't bear to let it go. The glass jugs first fermented like crazy for a while and then once they were done "working," we switched out the plastic bag/rubber band combo for an airlock.

11 months later, I tasted it. The first gallon was tolerable. The second gallon was downright ¡guácala! as they say in Español.

Because I haven't learned that aforementioned "letting go" lesson, I bottled up the first gallon and decided to convert the second into apple cider vinegar. The vinegar-making is a nice diversion - I've convinced myself it's a great use for the end product of all of that work (something about lemons and lemonade comes to mind).

We use tons of apple cider vinegar for pickling, preserving, and everyday consumption, and it seems like a staple while hard cider seems like a luxury item.

The best apple cider vinegar is apparently made from hard apple cider and here is how it's done:

1. Pour the hard cider into a ceramic crock or wide-mouthed glass jar
2. Add a bit of live-culture apple cider vinegar (not pasteurized - with "the mother")
3. Cover with a cloth to keep bugs out and ferment for 4-8 weeks at 70-85 degrees.

The fermentation adventures continue. Here's hoping that my trusty 1-gallon crock will come through with its magical powers of transformation and we will have a gallon of delicious apple cider vinegar in 4-8 weeks. One year, lots of effort, and lots of microbial activity later . . . . lemons / lemonade, journey / destination, etc, etc, etc.

UPDATE (September 1, 2011): The end result was the best apple cider vinegar I've ever tasted. Since we actually use a much larger volume of apple cider vinegar than hard cider, I consider myself fully satisfied with this fermentation project.

Seminal Work

It's hard to believe I've never read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring before now. I've been meaning to read it for years, and I'm so glad I've finally gotten around to it.

It really is an incredible, revolutionary, prescient, and brilliant book. So much of what Rachel Carson wrote is so relevant for those of us engaged in growing food now, and really for anyone who cares about the health of the planet and our own health.

I always thought that Silent Spring was just about DDT. It is so much broader and deeper than that--it's really an indictment of the whole way of thinking that sets humans apart from the rest of the natural world.

Silent Spring has a lot to say about how we grow food. Carson's comments on agriculture are still relevant and cutting-edge, even 50 years later. She advocates polyculture/interplanting and explains the problem with monoculture (although I don't think the word had been coined yet), explains the concept of broad-spectrum insecticides--which she says should really be called "biocides," discusses the affect of pesticides on honeybees, explains the way that invasive species of plants and insects can disrupt ecosystems, and exposes the history and origins of synthetic pesticides. She explains that the first synthetic pesticides were developed during WWII, and were chemical agents developed by the military for use in chemical warfare, intended to be lethal to humans. Insects were used to test the poisons, and it was inadvertently discovered that they were also lethal to insects.

Reading Silent Spring has made me bump Linda Lear's biography of Rachel Carson to the next-up spot on my reading list - I'm just staggered by the breadth of this woman's knowledge and analysis, and moved by her beautiful writing. She apparently wrote Silent Spring while suffering from rapidly-metastasizing breast cancer, racing against the disease to finish her life's work. In the 18 months that she lived after the book was published, she was viciously attacked by the chemical industry, which branded her a "hysterical spinster."

Portrait of Rachel Carson from Robert Shetterly's "Americans Who Tell the Truth" series.

I honor the "hysterical spinsters" of days gone by as my feminist foremothers, and am so grateful for Rachel Carson's courage, vision, and brilliance in defense of systems of life on the planet.

Here are some quotes from what I've read so far:

• "Under primitive agricultural conditions the farmer had few insect problems. These arose with the intensification of agriculture--the devotion of immense acreages to a single crop. Such a system set the stage for explosive increases in specific insect populations. Single-crop farming does not take advantage of the principles by which nature works; it is agriculture as an engineer might conceive it to be. Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds. One important natural check is a limit on the amount of suitable habitat for each species. Obviously then, an insect that lives of wheat can build up its populatio nto much higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not adapted."

• "The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world--the very nature of its life."

• "Future historians will be amazed at our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?"

• "It seems reasonable to believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction."

seminal (ˈsɛmɪnəl)

— adj
1. highly original, influential, and important
2. (botany) of or relating to seed

[origin: from Late Latin sēminālis belonging to seed, from Latin sēmen seed]

Easy, Creamy, Dreamy: Raw Goat Milk Yogurt

So I have discovered that there is almost no work at all involved in making yogurt from raw goat milk. The goats and the microbes do all the work for you! Put some milk in a jar with a little bit of yogurt and viola: creamy, thick, sour-delicious yogurt.

Raw milk yogurt is so easy to make it's hard to even use the word "recipe" here, but here's the recipe:

Goat Milk Yogurt

1. Fill a clean quart jar almost to the top with raw goat milk
2. Add a spoonful or two of live culture yogurt
3. Screw on the lid and let sit for 18 hours or so in a warm place.
4. Enjoy. Save a couple of spoonfuls for the next batch.

Yum. After the past few years of perpetual move-busting, it's nice to do something that is easy.

I would like to thank the fabulous Ms. Foxy Brown for providing the milk for this adventure in cultured dairy.

On the Unexpected Rewards of Falling Behind

Volunteer potato

For the past few months, I've been bitterly lamenting the fact that our garden has been neglected to the point of chaos because of goats, plant sales, and off-farm work. Last fall, my life was consumed by managing a political campaign. Then our amazing interns finished their summer garden commitment, decreasing the garden labor available substantially. And it's only gotten worse since then.

In the Spring, our business selling heirloom plant starts exploded, and we grew and sold thousands of seedlings to gardeners in Asheville, Hendersonville, and Black Mountain. Plus our goat herd expanded (and will continue to, as pregnant goat bellies swell). All of this farm business was wonderful, but was only possible at the expense of our own garden.

By the first of June, the garden was totally out of control. Weeds were as tall as me in some places, and thick. We had a dense cover crop of ragweed and poke. We were planting annual vegetables at least a month later than usual--in some cases two months later than we had intended. As two Virgo first child overacheivers, and as a household that relies on the garden for all of our fresh produce and much of our food year round, we were getting pretty depressed about the whole situation.

The last of last year's mixed heirloom dry beans

I kept reminding myself of something that a friend said to me in the past few years along the lines of "Everyone's always in such a hurry to get their plants in the ground in the Spring, but it's really no rush - we have such a long growing season here, and there's plenty of time."

Dry beans and winter squash that need 100 days to maturity still have plenty of time before first frosts here, even being planted in early July. Which is a good thing since I just planted the last beans and squash today. Of course the pests get worse and worse the later in the summer it gets, but c'est la vie.

So now to the part about unexpected rewards. Last fall during campaign season, which was also goat barn-building season, we did a thing that we tell the students in our gardening classes never to do. We left almost all of our permanent raised beds exposed - no cover crops, no mulch, nothing but whatever was left of the straw mulch from last season. The only exceptions were the beds we planted with fava beans and garlic in the fall for spring harvest.

I was cursing our negligence as I pulled 5-foot tall Queen Anne's lace and dock from the beds to clear them for my ultra-late bean and squash planting. Until I realized this: we had a whole unexpected crop of volunteer potatoes. Pulling weeds was like hitting the potato jackpot in those ten or so beds. Each 40-foot bed that we weeded yielded about 15 pounds of potatoes. (yesterday's haul from weeding two beds pictured above).

And: there is nothing like volunteer potatoes to aerate a raised bed. The soil was so loose and ready for planting by the time the potatoes were all dug out that we were able to skip the broadforking that's usually part of our no-till bed prep regimen. All and all, it worked out pretty well.

I'm not saying that I ever want to do it again (fight an epic battle with weeds and still be planting beans in July) but I am saying that it's a really good lesson for me that sometimes there are unexpected rewards for not doing things according to plan. Last night we dined on potatoes au gratin made with new potatoes from yesterday's harvest and fresh raw goat milk. Even when things don't work out as planned, sometimes they really work out.

Taking Care of Babies

2011 is The Year of the Animal on Red Wing Farm.

First there were our girls -- three young Nubian does (Zuzu, Jojo, and Foxy Brown) and a Sannen doe named Rosie. And Buckley, a handsome Nubian buck. These goats came to us from Three Graces Dairy up in Madison County and piled out of the truck into the newly-built barn and made themselves right at home.

Then came more two more goats from Three Graces, a dog, and a brief duck experiment. 13 chickens and one deranged pea hen have been bustling around in the background through it all.

We have been taking care of babies all Spring. It started in February with the spontaneous adoption of Mona, a wonderful mama Nubian, and her 9-day old doeling Moonpie (pictured a few days after their arrival, above).

Then came little Merlin, a 4-month old buckling given to us by our friend Val at Double G Ranch, a "buck trade" on the promise of a future buckling of ours to go to Double G.

On June 1st, our Nubian first freshener Foxy Brown gave birth to the first baby born on the farm, little Felix. Motherhood did not come naturally to Ms. Foxy--she looked at Felix first with confusion and then with fear. She rejected him completely, refusing to let him get anywhere near her to nurse. We had to hold her and force her to let him nurse at three hour intervals for the first four days of his fragile little goat life, and then, miraculously, she figured it out.

The same week Felix was born, we found a listing for a full-blooded Border Collie surrendered by a breeder to an animal shelter in eastern Tennessee. We had been looking for quite some time for a rescued Border Collie to train as a goat herder, and we had to act fast. So I drove to Chuckie, TN and collected Maisey, a sweet and smart 3-month old pup who everyone has fallen in love with.

In the midst of this animal explosion, we tended and sent to new homes somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 annual and perennial seedlings. The plant babies were demanding in their own way, requiring daily attention from February through the end of May.

Three more goats are pregnant, so the babies are going to keep on coming through the fall, and we will very likely have a small flock of Khaki Campbell laying ducks established down by the pond by the end of the year.

It has been an exhausting, gratifying, and humbling experience caring for and connecting with all of the new nonhuman members of our farm family.

I've fallen off the blog wagon as animal and plant chores have eclipsed everything else. But I wouldn't have it any other way - our fridge is full of goat milk, goat sour cream and yogurt are culturing on the counter, Maisey's crashing into things on the porch chasing her tail, and baby Felix is frolicking up a storm. And The Year of the Animal continues!

Christopher and Moonpie at 4 months

Newborn Felix

Little Felix at about two weeks old with Mama Foxy

On Product Placement and Free Things

I admit that I am not immune to the bright, shiny, appeal of good design and eco-consumer-culture. I have an expensive refrigerator along those lines. However, the "green" products market has really reached a point of absurdity lately. And I am usually skeptical, and often even downright testy when people start pitching products to me. This holds true whether the product is a breakfast cereal, some supplement or herbal formula that will supposedly make me feel like I am 21 again, a kitchen or garden tool that will cut my work in half, or the newest eco-designer item that looks like it is going to save the planet one purchase at a time.

Recently this skepticism/testiness was engaged when I saw this post from the Sierra Club about "furniture made from reclaimed materials." Always up for some inspiring DIY projects that keep "waste" out of the trash cycle and look cool doing it, I clicked on over. Turns out the post features "green" consumer items ranging in price from $220 to $2,450. Really, Sierra Club, has it come to this? Is product placement really the best you have to offer?

There used to be a cult in Asheville that produced and disseminated bumper stickers reading, "Stop Bitching and Start A Revolution." This slogan has become a useful catchphrase in our household, and in that spirit, I offer this reply to all of those pitching green products:

Five Free or Super-Cheap Things Greener, Healthier, and Cooler Than Any Newfangled Product

1. Clotheslines: You can buy one if you want to get fancy, or you can make one out of practically any string- or rope-like material. In Nicaragua, we saw clotheslines made of barbed wire. Which reminds me, if you want to see ingenious and inspiring, simple, and inexpensive design solutions, I suggest looking to the Third World. People who don't have much in the way of material resources do amazing and beautiful things with trash. Something about necessity being the mother of invention comes to mind, and I wonder if maybe we could do with a little more necessity. If you really want to splurge, get a clothes-drying rack - for under $10 you can experience the pinnacle of non-electric clothes-drying technology.
2. Potato Patches: Of course growing your own food in general is a way to reduce your carbon footprint, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I mention potatoes in particular because they are a) easy, b) able to grow practically anywhere, and c) able to produce more food per square food than any other common garden vegetable (although I think sweet potatoes can give them a run for their money) and d) full of the calories and starch that are the bulk of what we eat, unlike let's say goji berries or pomegranate juice. Chop up some potatoes. Throw them on the ground and pile some soil or straw on top of them. Wait a few months. Enjoy your home fries, vichyssoise, or latkes. And guess what? It's gluten-free, organic, and local and you didn't have to pay extra for it!
3. Libraries: One of my favorite examples of the commons. I was raised by a librarian, and spent some of the best times of my childhood in the cool, quiet, aisles of libraries. Watching a movie recently that included a scene depicting the looting and burning of the Library of Alexandria, I cried my book-nerd eyes out. The internet, of course, is kind of like a big library, but libraries have the advantage of being a place - a physical space devoted to sharing information, stories, knowledge, and art. What could be better?
4. Gleaning: The term gleaning was originally used to refer to collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after the harvest. But these days there are many food-producing plants left unattended and food left unharvested altogether. Old fruit trees, in particular, are often ignored. I always imagine someone hurrying by an old apple tree on the way to the car on the way to the grocery store, where s/he will buy apple juice, or maybe even an actual apple (in rare cases). The crabapples pictured at the top of this post were gleaned from trees that produce abundantly every year - and are ignored as the fruit ripens, drops, and rots. Another form of gleaning is (with permission, of course) digging up plants from friends' gardens. Along with seed swaps, this is a great way to participate in the gift economy. There is no reason for garden centers to sell lemon balm, for instance, or anything else in the mint family. Plants make food. Plants make more plants. Don't let all that food and all those plants go to waste.
5. Rescuing cool stuff from the waste stream: At the risk of embodying the Portlandia Dumpster Divers stereotype, I have to note that a lot of useful and beautiful things are thrown "away." Long ago, someone pointed out to me that there is no "away." It's one of the things I've noticed when travelling in the Third World, where trash is often not hidden away. Walking down the street in some towns in Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Mexico that I've visited, I initially bristled at trash being strewn everywhere seemingly at random. Then I thought about the fact that we produce way more trash here in the USA, but we hide it, or export it to poorer countries. I have come to appreciate the honesty of just leaving trash out in the open, where someone who might use it can come across it. I'm not advocating litter, just saying that when a place looks "trashy" or "redneck" it might be because people are hanging on to potentially-useful stuff, things that need repair, or materials for making things, rather than just sending broken or messy items to the landfill. My friend Puma is the queen of making truly beautiful, artistic, and useful stuff from scraps and trash and someday I should do a whole post on his craft. In the meantime, I refer you to a cool little collection of photos that he sent me the other day involving furniture made from shipping pallets. Now those are some reclaimed, repurposed, recycled objects I can get behind.

Stepping down off the soapbox. Time to go earn some money so I can buy some stuff.

Swarming

After day three of the three busiest days in our farm's life (selling more than 2,500 plants at the biggest grower-to-gardener sale in the region, with an estimated turnout of 25,000 people) I was ready for a slow and easy evening with a glass of wine and my couch. Christopher and I had finally collapsed in a limp pile of plant-selling exhaustion and were preparing to lie still for as long as possible when Christopher looked out the window and said, "WHAT IS THAT?!?!?!"

A beautiful swarm of honeybees had settled in a small hawthorn tree in the garden, about three feet off the ground! (If you click on the image above, you can see a larger version in which you can see the individual bees.) From the depths of my foggy, exhausted brain, I somehow located a dusty memory of learning about swarms at Bee School. I remembered that it is a rare and special occasion when a swarm crosses your path, and I felt certain it was beyond my beginning beekeeping skills to capture it. But I knew you have to act fast with a swarm, or risk the bees moving on.

I called two super-knowledgable local beekeepers, Joan Chesick and Calvin Robinson. Joan wasn't home, and Calvin was in another state, but answered his phone and talked me through the process, encouraging me and telling me I could do it, giving me step-by-step instructions and the confidence to peel my tired self off the couch and get out there and give that swarm a home!

Thanks to Calvin's calm and clear instructions and my best efforts, the new bee colony is housed in an empty hive body I had. The hardest part was robbing a frame of drawn comb and honey from my existing hive to keep the swarm interested in their new home. Normally our bees are easygoing and don't seem to mind my intrusion, but this time they were riled up, and I got stung a few times through my clothes and even through my rubber gloves.

Dealing with the swarm was much easier, and really magical. Here's a poor-quality video Christopher shot on my phone - it was dusk, so it's a bit hard to see, but captures the process.

What a blessing from the universe on a busy Beltane. I am so grateful for the overflowing abundance - the overwhelming turnout at the plant sale, the hundreds of gardeners who bought plants from us and the few who even brought us gifts of special and rare plants, the other vendors who created a lively barter and gift economy at the sale, and the BEES who decided to make Red Wing Farm their home!