Water is a vital nutrient for any animal or plant. Without water, life would quickly come to an end on this planet. Yet only a very small percentage of the water on earth is freshwater and can be used for the plants or animals that people normally raise. So we must be careful with the water that we do have. Right now most of the Midwest is in a drought. This is not a completely uncommon occurrence, and it seems that every few years there is not enough water or too much water at the wrong time. The rain is a blessing and a curse. Yet it could easily be seen as a blessing whenever and however it falls.
There are several great books on storing and stewarding the water you have. One of the best is a set of books by Brad Lancaster called Rainwater Harvesting Vol.1 and Vol. 2. Lancaster lives in the "sun belt" and most yards and gardens there require huge amounts of supplemental watering. Brad looked at the way in which things were planted and realized that there was a huge amount of water that could be used, freely, and would help with his own yard and garden.
Rainwater harvesting focuses mainly on using the landscape in such a way that water can quickly soak in and be stored. Rather than encouraging runoff from storms; swales, dams and other earthworks help discourage erosion and aid in keeping the plants well watered. Lancaster points to certain desert peoples from the ancient near east who could sustain agriculture on around 4 inches of rain a year. Surely we could learn something from this type of dry land agriculture.
Art Ludwig's book, Water Storage, is another great help to those trying to use the water that is available to them. Mostly the book focuses on the use of ferro-cement, a lightweight form of concrete, to make water storage devices. He points out the amount of water available from roofs and other catchment systems, and the numbers are amazing. If 1 inch of rain falls on 1000 square feet of impermeable surface (like a roof or a parking lot) there is 623 gallons of runoff. If that runoff is caught and used, even for things like watering a garden or fire prevention, there is much less draw on well or city water.
The last book that I would like to recommend is The Home Water Supply by Stu Campbell. Campbell's book focuses much more on domestic water issues such as water pressure, digging a well, or finding ways to prevent contaminating groundwater. If you are in the country and are not going to be hooked up to a rural or city water supply, this book is the one that you need to find out more about your options and the challenges ahead of you.
All of these books focus on different aspects of water for the home. Some of the books are about finding ways to use the water that is available naturally to our best advantage, while others are about the practicalities of hooking up a plumbing system and using well water off the grid. No matter what you plan to do, or where you live, water and proper water usage is going to come up.
These books and others on water and water storage can be found here.
Live a Hands On Life
www.uncommonskills.com
Friday, July 13, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
Rose hips: Homegrown vitamin C
We have all heard references from the past to scurvy, whether it was scurvy dogs on pirate ships, or the use of scurvy grass to combat the winter ailment. Now we know that scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C. We have also learned that Vitamin C is necessary for the immune system to function properly, and we have all sorts of vitamin C boost for sickness.
I have stumbled across another source of vitamin C that is much closer to home, and doesn't require highly processed and expensive pills or packets from the pharmacy. Rose hips were used in Britain during World War II as a homegrown source of vitamin C when citrus fruit were unavailable or expensive.
A rose hip is simply the fruit of a rose bush. They are the red ball left behind once the rose has flowered. Some I have had tasted like sweet tart berries, others tasted like sun dried tomatoes. I guess that when they breed roses, they do not take into account the flavor of the rose hips, so you may have to find your own variety that has a pleasant flavor. The problem with eating rose hips is that they are full of seeds, and around the seeds are tiny hairs that are irritating, not only to the mouth but to the digestive track as well.
To get around this problem, the Brits made rose hip syrup or rose hip jelly. First they would smash the hips, and then add them to boiling water. Turn off the heat and let them rest for about 15 minutes, then strain through a jelly bag. You can repeat the process up to three times with the same rose hips and still get vitamins out of them. Once you have the strained juice add about 1 lb of sugar for every 1 lb of rose hips you started with. Put it in sterilized jars and you have your own homegrown source of vitamin C with many times the vitamin C of oranges. If you want a thicker syrup you can heat the sugar mixture again waiting until it is as thick as you want, even going so far as to make a jelly out of it.
The resulting syrup keeps wonderfully and can be used as a sweetener, or whenever you feel the beginnings of an illness, just like the store bought vitamin C. If it ever becomes too expensive to transport citrus, or if you have an issue with eating things that have traveled thousands of miles just to reach you, then rose hips may be your answer.
Much of the information in this post comes from the book
Food for Free by Richard Mabey
You can find a copy of the book here
You can find other books on foraging and wild foods here
As always
Live a Hands On Life
www.uncommonskills.com
I have stumbled across another source of vitamin C that is much closer to home, and doesn't require highly processed and expensive pills or packets from the pharmacy. Rose hips were used in Britain during World War II as a homegrown source of vitamin C when citrus fruit were unavailable or expensive.
A rose hip is simply the fruit of a rose bush. They are the red ball left behind once the rose has flowered. Some I have had tasted like sweet tart berries, others tasted like sun dried tomatoes. I guess that when they breed roses, they do not take into account the flavor of the rose hips, so you may have to find your own variety that has a pleasant flavor. The problem with eating rose hips is that they are full of seeds, and around the seeds are tiny hairs that are irritating, not only to the mouth but to the digestive track as well.
To get around this problem, the Brits made rose hip syrup or rose hip jelly. First they would smash the hips, and then add them to boiling water. Turn off the heat and let them rest for about 15 minutes, then strain through a jelly bag. You can repeat the process up to three times with the same rose hips and still get vitamins out of them. Once you have the strained juice add about 1 lb of sugar for every 1 lb of rose hips you started with. Put it in sterilized jars and you have your own homegrown source of vitamin C with many times the vitamin C of oranges. If you want a thicker syrup you can heat the sugar mixture again waiting until it is as thick as you want, even going so far as to make a jelly out of it.
The resulting syrup keeps wonderfully and can be used as a sweetener, or whenever you feel the beginnings of an illness, just like the store bought vitamin C. If it ever becomes too expensive to transport citrus, or if you have an issue with eating things that have traveled thousands of miles just to reach you, then rose hips may be your answer.
Much of the information in this post comes from the book
Food for Free by Richard Mabey
You can find a copy of the book here
You can find other books on foraging and wild foods here
As always
Live a Hands On Life
www.uncommonskills.com
Friday, June 29, 2012
What is Aquaponics?
There is a new form of agriculture running around that may help with tight spaces and poor land. This agriculture is called aquaponics, and it is a mixture of aquaculture (raising fish or aquatic animals) with hydroponics (growing plants without soil). What aquaponics allows is for the waste products of the fish, mostly ammonia, to be converted into nitrite and then into nitrate so that the plants can use this form of nitrogen to grow. This allows for the fish wastes, which otherwise can be quite harmful to the environment, to be used, while encouraging the growth of plants in a medium that is usually difficult to perfect.
Basically it works like this. You feed fish. Fish are one of the best sources of animal protien because they have a high conversion ratio, in other words it doesn't take a lot of fish food to make a lot of fish. The fish do produce large amounts of ammonia though, and ammonia is extremely toxic to them. Luckily there is a group of bacteria that convert ammonia into nitrate, and another group that convert nitrite into nitrate. Now nitrates are still a big pollutant, and too much can harm the fish, so how do we solve that problem.
By growing plants of course. Almost everyone has seen what high nitrogen fertilizers can do to plant growth. Who hasn't wished that their plants could shoot up green and healthy almost overnight. The nitrates are a form of nitrogen that the plants can easily use, so the nitrates are removed from the water and provide a perfect fertilizer for the plants. Now the plants need more than just nitrogen, they also need phosporus, potassium and all sorts of trace minerals, so this is not a perfect set up, but it is better than many ways of growing plants. In addition to having ample nitrogen available, the plants are watered nearly constantly and so never undergo the water stress that can severly limit the growth of a normal garden.
This system will never replace mainstream agriculture because you will always need something to feed the fish, and the nitrogen loving plants are typically leafy green vegetables rather than fruiting vegetables (like tomatoes, and peppers) but there are many ways that aquaponics can be helpful. Tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables can be grown aquaponically, but not as well as leafy greens. In dry environments aquaponics is useful because the water is right where the plants need it and is recycled, only being used by evaporation, transpiration, or plant growth; never by being absorbed into the soil. In urban areas, the large amount of production from a small space can be a God-send. And for homesteaders, being able to provide a large portion of your food, both vegetable and animal for small input in terms of fertilizers, time, and money is always a blessing.
There are hundreds of different aquaponics systems around the world, and they are almost entirely home-brewed, that is, created by the people who use them. These systems all have their positives and negatives, but they all help to accomplish something that their owners see as necessary. Perhaps aquaponics could help people take more charge of the food that they consume, and provide a healthier more varied diet for a large number of people.
To see some books on aquaponics please visit http://uncommonskills.com/category/garden/aquaponics/
For some great examples of aquaponic system and how they are used (along with some free info on aquaponics) visit http://www.fastonline.com/ or http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/. Both are great resources for those thinking of setting up an aquaponics system.
As always
Live a Hands-on Life
http://www.uncommonskills.com/
Basically it works like this. You feed fish. Fish are one of the best sources of animal protien because they have a high conversion ratio, in other words it doesn't take a lot of fish food to make a lot of fish. The fish do produce large amounts of ammonia though, and ammonia is extremely toxic to them. Luckily there is a group of bacteria that convert ammonia into nitrate, and another group that convert nitrite into nitrate. Now nitrates are still a big pollutant, and too much can harm the fish, so how do we solve that problem.
By growing plants of course. Almost everyone has seen what high nitrogen fertilizers can do to plant growth. Who hasn't wished that their plants could shoot up green and healthy almost overnight. The nitrates are a form of nitrogen that the plants can easily use, so the nitrates are removed from the water and provide a perfect fertilizer for the plants. Now the plants need more than just nitrogen, they also need phosporus, potassium and all sorts of trace minerals, so this is not a perfect set up, but it is better than many ways of growing plants. In addition to having ample nitrogen available, the plants are watered nearly constantly and so never undergo the water stress that can severly limit the growth of a normal garden.
This system will never replace mainstream agriculture because you will always need something to feed the fish, and the nitrogen loving plants are typically leafy green vegetables rather than fruiting vegetables (like tomatoes, and peppers) but there are many ways that aquaponics can be helpful. Tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables can be grown aquaponically, but not as well as leafy greens. In dry environments aquaponics is useful because the water is right where the plants need it and is recycled, only being used by evaporation, transpiration, or plant growth; never by being absorbed into the soil. In urban areas, the large amount of production from a small space can be a God-send. And for homesteaders, being able to provide a large portion of your food, both vegetable and animal for small input in terms of fertilizers, time, and money is always a blessing.
There are hundreds of different aquaponics systems around the world, and they are almost entirely home-brewed, that is, created by the people who use them. These systems all have their positives and negatives, but they all help to accomplish something that their owners see as necessary. Perhaps aquaponics could help people take more charge of the food that they consume, and provide a healthier more varied diet for a large number of people.
To see some books on aquaponics please visit http://uncommonskills.com/category/garden/aquaponics/
For some great examples of aquaponic system and how they are used (along with some free info on aquaponics) visit http://www.fastonline.com/ or http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/. Both are great resources for those thinking of setting up an aquaponics system.
As always
Live a Hands-on Life
http://www.uncommonskills.com/
Monday, January 23, 2012
Uncommonskills becomes an Amazon Affiliate
After a year of no sales, I have decided to make a major change to the website. Rather than take it down, I have decided to attempt to make a go of things as an amazon affiliate. In this way, the money that you spend on books will still help create more book reviews, more expiraments, and more blog post. Rather than working so much on the nuts and bolts of a web site, I will have more time to review books, and to provide examples of how to live a hands on life.
I hope you check out the site and find it just as useful and informative as before.
Thank you for sticking with us through all the changes.
Wally
Live a hands on life
www.uncommonskills.com
I hope you check out the site and find it just as useful and informative as before.
Thank you for sticking with us through all the changes.
Wally
Live a hands on life
www.uncommonskills.com
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Book Review (Cordials from your kitchen)
Have you ever wanted to make your own liqueurs? Perhaps you want to experiment, or your love of cooking has carried over into drinks. Perhaps it is just too expensive to buy the kinds of full flavored liqueurs that you would like. This book may be able to help.
Divided into Chapters based on the type of liqueur that you are looking for, Pattie Vargas and Rich Gulling provide excellent and easy to follow recipes to make recreations of many popular liqueurs as well as recipes for some of their very own creations. The side-bars provide insight into how to experiment and what flavors may go well together.
The last chapter of the book is devoted to recipes using the liqueurs often using them in desserts and other sweets. This book is chock full of ideas on how to make and use various liqueurs as gifts, as ingredients, or even as drinks themselves.
Chapters include Fruit liqueurs, nut liqueurs, herb and spice cordials, cream liqueurs, coffee liqueurs, and flavored liquors. With a huge amount of recipes under each section, this book could provide years of experimentation simply by following the recipes in it and seeing how they turn out. However, I find that the book provides many more ideas than recipes, and once you master the basics of making liqueurs, almost anything you can dream up can be created.
This is an excellent book for those interested in experimenting with flavors, or who love those sweet and luscious drinks that are oh so expensive.
You can buy the book at www.uncommonskills.com or at your local bookstore.
Live a hands on life
www.uncommonskills.com
Divided into Chapters based on the type of liqueur that you are looking for, Pattie Vargas and Rich Gulling provide excellent and easy to follow recipes to make recreations of many popular liqueurs as well as recipes for some of their very own creations. The side-bars provide insight into how to experiment and what flavors may go well together.
The last chapter of the book is devoted to recipes using the liqueurs often using them in desserts and other sweets. This book is chock full of ideas on how to make and use various liqueurs as gifts, as ingredients, or even as drinks themselves.
Chapters include Fruit liqueurs, nut liqueurs, herb and spice cordials, cream liqueurs, coffee liqueurs, and flavored liquors. With a huge amount of recipes under each section, this book could provide years of experimentation simply by following the recipes in it and seeing how they turn out. However, I find that the book provides many more ideas than recipes, and once you master the basics of making liqueurs, almost anything you can dream up can be created.
This is an excellent book for those interested in experimenting with flavors, or who love those sweet and luscious drinks that are oh so expensive.
You can buy the book at www.uncommonskills.com or at your local bookstore.
Live a hands on life
www.uncommonskills.com
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Book Review (Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game)
Basic Butchering of livestock and game by John Mettler Jr. DVM (Veterinarian) is one of those essential books if you want to do any kind of butchering by yourself. While some are uncomfortable with butchering, if you are going to eat meat it behooves you to know how to safely and humanely butcher animals. Butchering is truly one of the lost arts, as there is rarely a neighborhood butcher anymore, and you either buy meat from the supermarket where it has had who knows what done to it, or you look to learn to butcher yourself.
Dr. Mettler takes a beginner oriented approach to writing this book. He begins with a chapter on tools,a nd includes illustrations of the various tools that you would need to begine butchering your own animals. Some of thses tools are for large animals (like a powered saw) but for the most part they are the basic tools that anyone doing any butchering would need. He divides the book into chapters based on what kind of animal is being butchered, and advises on where to place the stunning shot, how to skin the animal, and how to divide it up for storage.
Dr. Mettler gives advice on how to butcher beef, veal, lamb, pork, rabbit, poultry, venison and even has a chapter on less usual meats like goats. He gives information on meat inspections, on preserving by smoking (including how to build a smokehouse) and also includes recipes for both meat and sausage.
The best thing about the book is the illustrations. While some are quite graphic, all of them are informative and explain in a simple picture what would take hundreds or thousands of words to explain. If you are looking at butchering your own meat, or simply would like to know how the butcher shop does it, this is the book to get.
You can purchase it here or at your local bookstore.
Live a hands on life
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Book Review (Root Cellaring)
Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel is a book that anyone who gardens extensively should have. If you want to be able to store your garden produce, in a way that is not energy intensive, you need to have this book. Natural cold storage is the perfect green solution to storing food, requiring neither refrigeration, nor special packaging.
The book is not just about building a root cellar however. First the book addresses what varieities of vegetables are the best keepers, and also gives an idea on what vegetables are available when. Not simply when they are grown, but when they can be expected to last until in storage.
And the book doesn't end with the traditional root cellar. There is a huge variety of storage methods that the book details, from a basement storage room, to a garden row clamp. You can try one or several of these methods until you are able to find what works best for you and for your garden.
Root Cellaring also details real people and their cellars. All of the cellars in the book are a little bit different and show that you can fit the cellar to your needs as a gardener, or as a family. There are many ingenious designs that people across the country have come up with to help store their own food, and produce their own meals.
And speaking of meals, the last chapter is packed full of recipes to assist you in cooking your stored produce. Fried green tomatoes, pear bread, pumpkin custard, and many more recipes will allow you to enjoy your stored produce, and to not become bored with it.
If you would like to purchase Root Cellaring, it can bee found here.
Live a hands on life,www.uncommonskills.com
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