Worm Composting / Self Cleaning Rabbit

Ok, this is actually something I did years ago. Funny enough I have run across it reposted on a couple worm composting sites after I posted it several years ago. This is an idea I had, sketched out on a scrap of paper for my carpenter father and this was the result. I told him how I need it to function, dimensions I was shooting for. He brought me furniture. This is rabbit cage/worm bin I could put in the freaking living room, however it still lives in the basement or the garage.

Here is the ALMOST Self cleaning rabbit cage / Worm Composting Bin. I think with a few tweaks it could be brilliant. Hell I thought it WAS brilliant until I lived with it's function for awhile, now it is just a decent idea. I will go into the "flaws" later.


This is the overall view of the unit. Rabbit cage on top, worm bin underneath, pretty basic. A few keys are the "trap door" or scraper unit underneath the cage. This stops stuff from falling into the bin constantly. When I need to "clean" the cage, I open the drawer underneath, take the lid off, push the bin back underneath the cage then pull out the trap door. Everything falls into the bin (thanks to the built in "funnel" Dad built in underneath) then I put the lid back on the bin. This is key, I didn't want to keep the bin "open" as I have it indoors and bottom line if you are using ANY manure in a bin, you will eventually have flies, so the lid is essential.

Here is a better photo that shows the three parts.

Another key is the bin is built into a large drawer on wheels. This is a LARGE rubbermaid bin and full of worms and materials it is heavy. This makes it very easy to handle.

Canning

Ok, well this post is more to the point of controlling your food. I started canning with my Mother and Grandmother when I was young. My mother got too busy and stopped doing it when we were really little but after my parents divorce and the ensuing lack of money she started doing it again when I was about 12. My Grandmother would come over and show us how to do it. I have a lot of memories of those times, it may be part of what draws me to keep doing it. I KNOW it is the reason that I am not "scared" of canning. Most people I talk to have a misconception that it is "hard", or easy to "mess up". It's not, truly, it is actually very simple. At least the basics are simple. You need produce, jars, lids, rings and a canner. That's the tools. The other essential thing is a basic book about canning. For beginners I always recommend the "Ball Blue Book of Canning". It covers all the basics - What to do, How to do it right, and a good amount of basic recipes.

Now, so you don't blame me later. It can be hard work, depending on what you decide to tackle. Word of advice, start small, one batch at a time. I have had marathon canning days where I was dead tired afterwards. But just tackling a batch of jam is a simple and rewarding evening project.

Now why do I can? Many reasons. Now that I have long ago bought and paid for the tools and jars it is a very cost effective means of setting food aside. There is an initial cost involved and to some it seems over whelming, in that it makes for an expensive jar of tomatoes when your able buy a can at the store for a dollar. You must factor for the years of use you will get from these items. For me, now, each jar I put up has very little financial investment. Also, I know EXACTLY what is in that jar and where it came from. This is becoming more and more crucial for me as time goes on. My jars of tomatoes were not trucked across the country. They walked from my garden to my kitchen, jumped into my canner and plopped on my pantry self. Other then the electricity for my stove there was no fossil fuels involved. The ideal would be to be able to grow everything I need to can for the year but on my urban lot that is not feasible so the other things I either swap with friends (helps to have farmer friends) or buy at farmers markets, it's the next best thing to growing it myself. If you are very industrious you can often find people with fruit trees gone crazy and they will give the fruit to you if you come and pick it. I had a couple of those occasions this year and scored some very nice plums which I made into some plum chutney. Also if you have any food restrictions canning can be very helpful. I add no salt to my canned tomatoes, if you are on a salt restricted diet this is very helpful, as that is hard to find in the stores. Also none of my canned goods have any items that I can not pronounce - preservatives, artificial colors or flavors etc. You also get to make things you just can't find on store shelves - for instance Peach Raspberry jam, or Apple Pie Jam, or different chutneys etc. However the biggest reason I can is that I find it very rewarding. I like making things myself. There is a lovely sense of accomplishment when I gaze upon my pile of goodies in their various colors and sizes.

Also, if you can find like minded people it can be a lovely social occasion. This year I got together with two friends and my Mother for a Pepper Jelly making bonanza. We made 5 flavors and a total of 64 jars. It was a nice afternoon and with enough hands on deck no one has to work too hard. Of course a food processor helps a lot as well, there is no way any one wants to chop that many peppers.

A bit of advice though. It is very easy to go over board. Only put up a bit over what you actually think you will eat in a year. A good rule of thumb is to only keep your canned goods for a year. Anything unused is a waste of time and money. That said, canning items can be great gifts for the right person. I used to give away a lot more then I do now. I found that some people just don't eat it, for what ever reason. So now I only give canned gifts to people that I KNOW will eat and appreciate the product and effort involved. Also it helps if it is someone that will give you back the jars afterward, that is a big future cost saver.

So here is what I have canned this year, just for ideas, and the season isn't over. I am just now getting into Tomatoes (since they were slow to start this year) and apple season isn't even in full swing. I have dried a few tomatoes already but haven't had enough at one time to break out the canner.

List so far:

Asian Plum sauce - 16 half pint jars
Peaches - 8 Quarts
Peach Jam - 10 half pints
Peach Habanero Jelly - 8 half pints
Apple Pepper Jelly
Apricot Jalapeno Jelly
Sundried Tomato Jalapeno Jelly
Mango Jalapeno Jelly
Dill Pickles - 8 quarts
Dill Relish - 8 Pints
Dilled Green Beans - 12 Pints
Plum Chutney - 12 half pints

To do list:

Tomatoes
Salsa
Apple Sauce
Apply Pie filling
Apple Pie Jam
Apple Chutney
Maybe some pears.......

Give it a try, it's worth it.

What a difference a year can make

The yard was a square patch of dieing lawn exactly year ago when we moved in.

Below is a picture from early this spring when I finally was able to start planting things (we had a LONG spring this year, I was very thankful for the hoop house I built). Prior to spring was when all the initial construction took place, building the raised beds, compost bins and fencing, the basic necessities.


Similar angle a year later............what a difference a year can make (with enough sweat)



The fence around the garden is to make life harmonious with the other critter sharing this space. My dog is.......well......special. She has a terrible habit of chasing and eating bees, yes bees. She is usually very good about "stay out of the garden", she knows there will be hell to pay if she tramples my plants, but if she is chasing a bee her "instinct" wins and my garden looses. AND I want the bees in the garden, so dog proof fence. The fence also keeps the chickens out, for similar reasons as the dog. They don't get to roam free in the yard often, but there are special places I have planted for them to browse outside the garden, everyone is happy. The cat however is still a bit of an issue, at first I was convinced he was too fat to hurdle the fence (see below photo), he did too for a while, now he manages to get himself over and has decided my newly composted beds are a good place to poop. Needless to say we are discussing the problem.

Below is the flower bed portion in early spring, on the outside of the fence, planted for "messy garden" disguise and beneficial bug attraction. Over all an essential part of the garden as far as I am concerned. There are tubers you can't see here. But overall I am prefer edible gardening so this bed, along with some basic standby garden flowers, has Lemon balm, Swiss Chard, nasturtiums, and kale.

Same space a year later.........


A couple more photos of garden in full summer mode. Overall starting in late April we have been eating primarily out of the garden. Other then a few things that are essential to a recipe and I didn't have ready yet, I have been eating seasonally out of the garden for 6 months now, starting with Rapini in the spring and now a full bounty of zuccini's, tomatoes, peppers etc. Some things I have even had enough of to put up for winter. I have just finished planting my fall starts - broccoli, cabbages, kales, lettuce, spinach, peas, beets, turnips.....I think that's it. With the hoop house I should be able to at least grow greens year round in our climate, at least the basic kale, lettuce and spinach, we'll see how it works out and what this winter brings.

Life has a way of stopping you in your tracks

I keep threatening to update this blog with all the goings on, life hasn't allowed it yet. I haven't had time to finish projects let alone post them here.

About a month ago my sister had her first child, and the first grandchild for my parents, since I have removed myself from the gene pool. She had a boy via C section. This whole process consumed a weekend plus a couple weekdays. Since the father is MIA, my mother and I were the ones to help her the week or two after she got home, so Jakob was a couple week side line on projects. Not even two weeks after he was born our grandfather passed away suddenly. I had just set up hospice for him three days prior and they were estimating "months". Well he fell and hit his head, the hospital stitched him up and sent him home. A couple hours later he had some seizures and passed away. Being the only family member locally that hadn't just had a C section and new baby, it was up to me to make all the arrangements and sort through his apartment.

My father has been battling Cancer for over two years. We knew when he came down for my sister's baby's birth that we were down to weeks. The night my Grandfather passed, his father, he spent the night in the hospital, his liver was failing. So I packed up my sister and baby and we spent the weekend after Grandpa's death with our father at his house in Washington. I will forever cherish that weekend, he passed away the following Saturday. We had come home on Monday and we returned on Wed/Thursday because we got the call that he wasn't going to make it much longer.

In 30 days time we had a birth and two deaths. Now I need a vacation. It has been a few weeks now since we had the services and I am just now getting caught up on the things that were brushed aside. Life has a way of re prioritizing itself.

I should be back on track and have things to share soon. I have been taking photos and notes, so I should be able to post many things about my "projects" soon.

Ahh a gardeners delight

Well, I have a million posts that I need to make. So many projects going on (too many that are only half complete, life keeps getting in the way). I want to make some detailed posts about each one - Building our hoop house that covers our 4x8 beds, the chicks (and some terrible things that happened with that this time around), the chicken coop, the revamped wonder rabbit house, on and on.

BUT today all I have to say is my dirt is beautiful. I was worried that I didn't get my soil built in the fall, which is what I prefer, I was starting from scratch in spring (well late winter actually). This changes things a bit, as to what is best to use for building the soil. For instance had I done this in fall I would have used a lot of uncomposted manure, but you don't want to do that in early spring. The manure won't have composted and cooled enough for your early spring plantings. SO, plan B. I also don't use "potting soil" in my raised beds. Mostly since the dry out too fast. What I used was a mix of soil (from site), compost, and composted manure. I also added amendments, rock dust, calcium, rabbit poo, alfalfa meal etc.

Results - I started planting a few weeks ago. Last night I was out plopping in a few starts I bought (weak retail moment, I usually start everything from seed)..........My dirt is absolutely THICK with worms. I rarely see worms in this density in my WORM bins. I started to feel bad since I couldn't dig a hole without squishing worms. THAT, in my opinion, is HAPPY dirt. Which makes me a HAPPY HAPPY gardener.

Ah, on to the heart of the matter

I got this whole blog started in the fall, shortly after a move, so needless to say there wasn't a whole lot of gardening going on. Fall and winter tend to be about baking and cooking for me. Which explains both the first few posts and the probably 15 pounds I gained this winter. That is not the case now. I can say we are well on our way to getting our set up going. We moved into the house in late September. It was a large square lawn, gotta love a blank slate. Having had started more then one garden by now I new we needed to get the beds built sooner then later, so we got those done right away in October before the weather went sour.

The last few weeks have seen the compost bins completed, a major A one priority. The new batch of worms arrived for the worm bins. I have been doing vermiculture for years but had to let them go 2 years ago due to a move and subsequent housing arrangements. I am happy to have those little gold minds back in action. I also have a couple new ideas for outside arrangements for these guys, so I am going to be doing some testing, I will surely update here as those come to fruition.

We also started the fencing that will go around the garden area. This is going to serve three functions, keeping the dog out when needed, keeping the chickens in when needed and growing Raspberries on, which is yummy and needed. The fence will get set next weekend just in time to plant the Raspberries.

The baby chicks are on order, they arrive March 3rd. This too I am excited to do again, this will be my second batch of chicks and I am looking forward to using what I learned the first time around, which was a lot. The biggest thing I learned is it isn't difficult, just messy. I am brooding a total of 15 chicks (double what I did last time) - 3 for me (which is the urban limit in Portland), 2 for my aunt who became the owner of my original flock after my life upturning move and she wants to add a couple more to the group and I am brooding 4 or so for a friend that needs to replenish her flock on her farm. It works well, she doesn't have the time and I get farm stuffs in trade (i.e plants for my veggie garden, since I don't yet have a greenhouse going, although that too is a changing this spring). I am also going to raise 5 Cornish crosses for meat. This is an experiment I have long wanted to do. We have future plans for moving to land with the aim for permaculture and self sufficiency (as much as possible), this will require raising our own meat. So we need to find out if we can do it. This first round will not be butchered by me. There is a local place that does the whole deal, drop off live birds and pick them up ready for the freezer. I am going this route for two reasons. One I am not educated in the right and humane way to do the deed, which is critical to me. Also, I need to find out if I can even raise something and have some one else do it. I figure if I can get the brids to slaughter, and still eat them then the next stage is going through the process with someone else so I can learn and experience it myself, THEN I will consider processing my own.

Next weekend is building the brooder for the chicks. Going through the experience with just a handful of chicks last time was a great learning experience and the Rubbermaid tub brooder I set up worked well.......to a point. I now know much more about what this will require. We will see if my new idea for a brooder works any better. I am sure the next post will be all about the brooder and the chicks arriving.

Dairy free update

Well I spent the weekend doing some more experimenting with the MimicCreme. This time I finally got to test out my ice cream maker and whipped up some dairy free ice cream, Bananas foster flavor. Outstanding. I got the recipe from http://accidentalvegetarian.blogspot.com/ but I subbed the magical MimicCreme for the Almond milk part of the equation and cut back on the agave since the I was using the sweetened MimicCreme. A super hit, especially since I love Bananas Foster. The anti-sweets boyfriend liked it to, even seeking it out in the freezer yesterday, which is unheard of.

I also made Vegan biscuits and gravy this weekend, yep and it was good. I used the Gardenburger Breakfast patties which are one of the few Gardenburger products that are gluten free. I crumbled the patties and browned them in a bit of oil. It is key to get them a bit crispy otherwise it breaks down in the gravy. I also added a bit of seasoning, crushed fennel and sage for more of a sausage flavor, crushed with salt in morter and pestle. Remove sausage from pan. Melt 2 Tbsp Earth Balance in pan, stir in 2 Tbsp GF Flour, stir, add MimicCreme and whisk. Goes together like any other gravy. I did cut the MimicCreme with a little straight Almond milk since I didn't want the full cream heaviness. NOTE: BEWARE, do NOT use sweetened or flavored almond milk in the gravy, the resulting gravy will be too sweet. The breakfast sausage already has a bit of a maple flavor and any sugar will ruin this tasty breakfast.

Happy eating this weekend for sure.