introduction, boredom and a few questions! Very long.

[sorcerer]

Hello all. I have been a lurker here for sometime now but have only posted a few times. Most of the questions I have I have been able to find the answers to from other peoples questions! I have been getting cabin fever recently with the nice warm but not quite spring weather we've had recently and I'm going stir crazy waiting for a chance to get outside and do some work in the yard!

So I thought I'd introduce myself and see if anyone has any grand ideas to pass away the short amount of time left 'til we can get outside.

My name is Karin. I live in the beautiful interior of BC, Canada. I am what most would consider an "urban homesteader" at least for the time being! We are lucky enough to have a large city lot in a lovely area on the outskirts of town. We're also unlucky enough to have the worlds worst soil for growing anything! Over the past few years I have build a number of raised beds for growing our vegetables and worked on improving the soil around our fruit trees and flower beds. In the past I have raised animals for food (ckickens, turkey's, lamb, rabbits) and intend to do so again when we are able to move from town and get a "real" homestead. At the moment I think we're doing ok for only having 1/3 of an acre. We have 2 apple trees, 1 pear tree, a peach tree, inlaws with cherries, apricots, apples and plums, friends with apricots, students with apricots, neighbours with apricots, and numerous people in the local paper trying to give apricots away. (In case you didn't guess - we live in a fairly apricot rich environment!) Which leads me to my first actual question - Anybody have any good recipes for using apricots? Each year I can lots, make jam, dry some, make loads of apricot fruit leather (mmmmmm.....yummy!) apricot cobbler, apricot yogurt, apricot muffins. DH doesn't really like them plain but will eat them in other stuff. Lucky for us our son LOVES them any way he can get them!

We also have strawberries, raspberries, grapes, last year we put in several blueberry bushes and a kiwi (the hardy northern variety.) We pretty much have our fruit needs covered. Last year I expanded our strawberry patch and the raspberries so this year we should get a decent crop off them. Oh, and a couple years ago I tries planting a blackberry bush. Didn't think it would do well in our climate but was I ever wrong! We had loads of blackberries from a teeny tiny area.

In our raised veggy beds I grow several varieties of heirloom/op tomatoes as that is one of the veggy's that we just can't ever seem to get enough of! Last year I grew a couple Brandywine plants and a bunch of Amish paste. The Amish paste were wonderful for making tomatoe sauce. I got a ton of sauce from a relatively small amount of tomatoes. I ended up mixing some of the Branywine's with the Amish paste and they gave the sauce a bit darker colour and a slightly better flavour - best looking/tasting tomatoe sauce I ever made!

We also grow a ton of other veggies and last year I tried freezing some of our extra broccoli, carrots, peas and green beans. They lasted well into the fall but we didn't nearly have enough for the whole year! I tried growing kidney beans to make chili and that is something I will expand on this year. I lost a large amount of carrots that I was going to store over the winter. I stored them in a large plastic bucket in damp sand on our front porch. It worked REALLY well until it froze around mid-December. Which leads me to question number two - any good ideas for a make shift root celler? I want to grow potatoes this year and would like to be able to store them, the carrots, beets if I can grow enough to last more than the summer! Some celery (grew some last year but lost most of it to the frost before we could use it.) and maybe some cabbage. I don't want to build an actually root celler as we won't be here long enough for it to be worth doing. I was thinking maybe a large box (like a fish tote maybe?) surrounded by straw bales? Or maybe a chest freezer on our porch with the temp turned up?

This year I am growing all OP veggies and planning to do some seed saving. Going to expand the cucumber bed and hopefully not have to buy pickling cukes this year. And my big experiment this year is going to try some hulless oats and some wheat. I don't have enough room to grow enough to feed us for more than one meal but I figure if I try it now I'll at least get enough for a loaf of bread and a bowl of oatmeal? Question number 3 - anyone tried growing hulless oats? Is it worthwhile? Do hulless oats make good ckicken/livestock feed as well or is it better to grow regular oats for them? Seems it would be easier to just stick to one kind but as I understand it the hulless variety aren't as prolific so producing them to feed livestock (ckickens, a cow, pigs and a few horses) may be too much trouble?

And one final question! Any ideas for late winter indoor projects to keep me (and my 18 month old) from going nuts!

Karin

[Tamalama]

to Welcome you to the board. It great place to learn and meet nice folks....Wish I could answer your questions but I too,am a newbie!
All together now......
Come on Spring!!!

[bgraham]

Hi Karin!

Unfortunately, I don't have the answers to your questions (though I would love to know about a make shift root cellar too!).

For recipes try here: http://www.recipezaar.com/ I have found lots of good recipes there.

It sounds like you are doing great on such a small space!!

I don't know what zone you are in but you could probably start some seeds now. I've started broccoli, lettuce, peppers and tomatoes. I love amish paste, too! I would love to try your sauce recipe!


Good luck! I hope you get answers to your questions!

Beth

[amwitched]

I am thinking of Apricot Nector as another idea to use up your apricots (and peaches, raspberries and strawberries). Mmmmmmmm!!!! The grocery stores sell all types of fruit nectors (made by Kerns). It is a really thick juice that you can drink straight or use to make smoothies.

I have to agree with bgraham about the fact that it sounds like you have been very busy.

The root cellar idea - do you have a basement? I read somewhere that someone stored their veggies in a box under their bed, too. I would think that your bedroom would have to be pretty cool, though. Maybe it would help if you buried the bucket in your garden and then added the sand. I remember reading about someone digging a trench in their garden, too. They put the veggies in, covered them with straw and then covered that with a tarp and dirt. The straw really helped to insulate the veggies, so they wouldn't freeze, but the tarp made it easier to access the veggies when they were needed.

[whiterock]

My mother used to make something she called apricot salad. The recipe was lost in a house fire.
I know she needed a double boiler, and added cheese on top. It was more of a runny pudding with apricot halves in it. REALLY rich stuff. I would love to have it again.

ANybody have this recipe?


Ed

[sorcerer]

Thanks for the welcome from everyone, and the ideas.

Beth - I have got a few trays of seeds started already. some celery ( it takes 3 weeks to germinate) a few herbs and PEANUTS! Yup, call me crazy but I'm going to give peanuts a try. I think I am zone 4/5 ish so don't know if it will work but I figure if I start them now, transplant to a large container or one of my raised beds with a cold frame cover I might be able to get a few. It's just an experiment this year. I made home made peanut butter last week and it turned out great even though my hand mixer kicked the bucket part way through! Turned out to be chunky instead of smooth but I kind of like the chunky better anyway. I'm planning to rig up a few cold frames over my raised beds to get a jump on the season so I should be able to start my tomatoes soon.

Amwitched - I've done nectar too with the apricots! You're right it is yummy! I highly recommend it. I made some peach nectar one year too. I've thought about burying a container in the garden or doing the trench idea - might give it a try this year. I'd like to figure out something that can live on my porch so it is a bit more accessible from the kitchen! Just me being lazy though!

[ellebeaux]

Welcome!

Wow, I'm impressed! I like the Brandywine and Amish Paste idea, I'll have to plant some this year.

What about rugmaking? Either braided rugs (made out of old Tshirts from the thrift shop!) or hooked rugs (made from wool strips). You can't quite do them in one hand and hold baby in another but I think it would work...

glad you posted!

B.

[hengal]

Hello Sorcerer and welcome!!
I too cannot really help you with your questions, but I just wanted to say I'm impressed with all that you have on your urban lot! Thats great! We have 3 acres and I haven't nearly filled it anywhere near your capacity. Good for you!
Hang on, someone will chime in soon with answers for you - there is a ton of knowledgable,friendly people here!!

[shar]

Welcome!

I would also like to try your paste recipe if you would like to share it.
I'll have to see if we can find some seeds for dh to start for the tomato
plants.

Have you dehyrated any of the apricots? I bet they would make great
fruit leather ( fruit roll ups).

[sorcerer]

My tomato sauce recipe is far from exact! I usually do it in smallish batches as the tomatoes are ripening. Last year most of it ended up being about 75% Amish paste and 25% Brandywine. I just dice up the tomatoes, cook them until they're soft and strain them through a mesh colander. You probably don't even need to do that if you just throw it all in the blender but I like to strain the seeds and skins out. Then I put it back in a big stock pot or my roasting pan if it is a large batch and cook off the liquid until it is thick enough to mound when dropped from a spoon. I don't add any herbs/spices, just process it in jars. I do some in the 250ml sized jars that are perfect for adding to taco beef, or stews or . . . whatever else needs just a hint of tomato and I do the rest in 500ml jars to use for spagetti sauce, chili, etc. It turns out very much like the canned "crushed" tomatoes from the grocery store. I use it for just about everything. I'll add herbs/spices and whatever else it needs depending on what I'm doing with it (just working on a batch of chili right now with some of it!) I found that that little bit of Brandywine gave it a wonderful fresh from the garden taste and darkened it up a bit. The colour is of course incidental but I kind of like the look of the dark red sauce. The Amish paste by themselves tended to be a bit more orange.

And re Apricots - Yup I've dried lots. Mostly as fruit leather. I dry it on cookie sheets in the oven (I use my dehydrator for drying halves) then I cut it into stips, cut the strips into pieces about 3 inches long and package them up about 3-4 pieces per package with my Decosonic (crazy little doodad that makes bags and then sucks the air out and seals them!) DH takes them as snacks to work. It's great.