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Category: his thoughts (page 5 of 13)

Acorns/Oak Nuts: Food from the Woods

November 17, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

This year has been a good year for acorns in North Carolina, with almost every oak I’ve seen having a decent crop of nutritious nuts. The oaks on our property are no exception, and in particular the chestnut oaks have had a bumper crop of huge acorns this fall. I gathered this pile of acorns from beneath a chestnut oak in about 5-10 minutes, and it ended up weighing about 5 pounds. Not too bad, and if you do some math, that would be 30-60 lbs. an hour.

5 pounds of chestnut oak acorns from our woods

Chestnut oaks make great acorns, some of the largest in our bioregion and also some of the least bitter. In general, the tastiest and sweetest acorns come from white oaks, while the most bitter tend to come from red oaks.

I’ll start processing these in the next few days and eventually get down to a nutritious and delicious product! Talk about nutrient dense food!

But before that can happen, the tannin will need to be leached out. This isn’t too complicated or difficult, but it does take some effort. I don’t know if we’ll be eating acorn bread on our tomato sandwiches next summer, but it should be a fun and edible experiment!

Managing Woodlands, Woodlots, and Forests for Fun and Profit

November 13, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

The millions of acres of American Woodlands have, for the last 2 centuries, been mined not managed. They have been stripped, clearcut, set on fire, and replanted with short rotation mono-crops to the point that many of our mature woodlands and forests bear little resemblance to healthy and natural woodland communities.This has been done in the name of short term profits, and while the logging companies and sawmills made-out great, more often than not landowners received a stumpage price way too low, and were left with a degraded and less valuable piece of forest in the aftermath.

clear-cutting forests is rarely the best form of timber management

It doesn’t have to be this way though. Forests can be sustainably managed and designed to produce income for generations. With proper thinning, forest planning, tree selection, and management techniques, forest owners can ensure that their woodlot is not just a commodity to be firesold to save the farm, but a profitable ecosystem that increases in value over time, and can be passed on to future generations.

To do this e will have to go into these abused forests and asses the damage that countless “highgrading” cuts (a logging practice where all trees above a certain diameter are harvested, leaving the worst adapted and least valuable species standing) have left only stunted, poorly composed timber stands. Sometimes we may need to replant, or perform shelterewood and seed tree cuts to ensure proper forest regeneration, but often some thinning of poor quality trees, which can release trees of higher quality to achieve their full potential, combined with timber best practices like crop tree management, silvopasture, and coppice regeneration can bring degraded and abused forests back into sustainable productivity and profitability.

These thinnings wont always be of high enough value for commercial loggers, but this material does not need to be wasted. In fact,it can be extremely profitable. These crooked, small diameter and low value logs can be used for mushroom production on logs, firewood,craft wood, or even be sawed to length on portable bandsaw mills. Other uses can include fence posts,biochar prodcution, hugelkulture, and round timber construction.

small diameter oak logs inoculated with shiitake mushrooms!

This is where the small woodlot managers have an advantage. It’s one thing to find uses for 2-10 acres of low value wood, but quite another when you are dealing with 1000’s of acres. Smaller forest owners, particularly those who live on the wooded acreage that they are managing, also have the advantage of constant contact and correction. They walk their property every week, sometimes every day and can notice things like diseased, dying and dead trees, and can quickly implement a strategy to deal with them. They can also easily diversify into many avenues of production. It’s very feasible for someone to combine a small shiitake mushroom operation on logs , a coppice grove for crafts, cut a few cords of firewood for home heating, put in a small food forest with edible tree and cane fruits, go hunting a few times a year for turkey, squirrel and deer, all while increasing the value of their timber, property and life.

forest owners and managers should observe and interact with their woods in order to come up with goals, and management strategies

This is the key to timber management, the interaction between owner and forest. There cannot be a prescription for management until an owner knows what he/she want’s to achieve with their woodlot. After that, a timber inventory, and then a timber management plan can be created and implemented. From there, it transitions to the long and enjoyable phase of observations and interactions, all tailored to the goals laid out in the beginning. This can lead to many years of productivity, profitability, and sustainability, all from a woodlot that was worth only a fraction of it’s value, but with proper timber management, can be passed down for generations as it wealth accumulates.

Blackberry and Raspberry Propagation by Layering

November 11, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

We have plenty of wild blackberries growing on our homestead, so when we ordered cane fruit plants last year for our food forest, we focused on raspberries. We did get 1 type of blackberry though, a thorn-less variety named Chester, known for its sweet, early ripening berries. Because we only have 1 lone plant at the base of a dwarf apple tree, we figured we should try our hand at layering, an easy method of cane-fruit propagation.

a chester blackberry ready to be layered

Layering involves digging a small hole by the base of the berry bush and then bending one of the canes down into it. That’s pretty much it. Over the winter, the buried portion of the young cane will start to send out roots, and will develop into a new plant! By bending the cane, instead of snipping off a cutting, the new plant still has access to the old plants more established root network and all of it’s nutrients and water it can absorb from the soil.

dig a small hole by the base of the plant, about 6 inches deep

then bury the new shoot, tamp down the soil, and wait until spring!

Come spring, simply cut the cane 6-8 inches from the base of the new plant, and feel free to either dig up and transplant your new black/raspberry or extend the older plant outwards like you would if you were creating an edible hedge, or fedge. This new plant will be exactly like your old plant, except that for the first year it’s leaves will be upside down!! Pretty cool, and a great way to produce more plants for free!

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Plantain (Plantago): Herbal First Aid in Action!

November 10, 2014 / jason / 2 Comments

Here’s a short video on how I treated an insect sting on my knuckle at work with some plantain today. Plantain is a great medicinal herb that is both very conspicuous and very safe. It’s a well known herb, sometimes considered a weed, that is often found in lawns, nature strips, and parks.

The compounds in the leaves are extremely useful at pulling out toxins and poisons, and old timers have used this wonder plant to treat all sorts of cuts, bites, and envenomations. My sting today was on my knuckle! Ouch! But the plantain (genus plantago) worked it’s magic and after just a few hours I couldn’t even tell which finger had gotten stung! Check out the video for more!

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Rhus copallina: Shining, Dwarf, Winged or Flameleaf Sumac

November 6, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Rhus copallina, or shining sumac, was one of the wild plants on our property that puzzled me for the longest time. I could recognize its distinctive sumac-y look that meant it belonged in the Rhus genus that contains the more common staghorn and smooth sumacs, but it didn’t match any of the pictures I could find of those two species. I was worried for a bit that it might be poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) but a quick Google search told me that the best way to tell poison sumac from okay sumac is the color of the berries. Red berries = don’t worry, and white berries = don’t touch/eat/make sumac tea. So, I went on not knowing exactly what the plant was, and being intrigued by its interestingly winged leaflets.

You can easily tell this type of sumac by the winged margins between the leaves.

But then, out of the blue one day while researching different types of permaculture plants, I stumbled across an image that finally made it clear that this sumac was winged sumac. It’s a great plant, with many uses and a strikingly beautiful presence on the homestead, especially in fall. It’s leaves are the darkest, most robust red I’ve ever seen.

But it’s not just a pretty plant! It also, like all of the safe sumacs, has a very high amount of vitamin c in it’s berries. You can soak them in water to pull out the vitamin c, and then freeze the tangy juice and use it like you would lemon juice. It’s also common for people, especially in the south, to make “sumac-ade” or pink lemonade out of the berries as well. I’ve heard of fisherman using a sprig of sumac berries in place of lemon when baking fish as well. In some countries, the berries are dried and ground up to make a spice that adds a red coloring to many dishes, and the pithy stems were often used in pipemaking.

We love the beautiful fall color of Rhus copallina!

Shining sumac can grow in a wide range of climates, from zones 4-10, and can tolerate full sun or partial shade. It really is a pioneer species that thrives on the forest edge, where it leads the advancement of meadow to woods. It spreads by suckers, can quickly fill up an area that has been cleared, and it is often planted as both a wildlife cover species and as a shrub to stabilize soil and prevent erosion. All sorts of birds enjoy the berries, and they help to spread the seeds as well. One more interesting thing about flameleaf sumac is that it often colonizes after fire events, which makes me wonder if the small stand we have used to be somewhere a burn or brush pile was kept by the previous owners.

In any event, I’m glad to have identified this plant, and even gladder to know that it’s so useful. I have been encouraging it wherever I see it growing, and hope to transplant a few into our backyard food forest this upcoming year and make a bunch of sumac-pink lemonade!

Sweet Potato Harvest 2014

November 4, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Today was a great day to harvest sweet potatoes. The slips we planted months ago have done okay in the garden and it was time to dig them up and see how they made.

The goose troop making sure I didn’t miss any sweet potatoes

In preparation for our first frost the other night we cut off the tops off of the sweet potato plants because frost damage enters the tubers from the vine part, and by cutting off the top and leaving the potatoes in the warm ground, we can delay the harvest a few days until it’s more convenient.To add a little bit of extra protection, I covered the sweet potato beds with old bed sheets to keep in a little extra warmth. It definitely worked, and there are no signs of any frost damage.

cutting the vines off and then covering with a bed sheet can give you a few extra days to harvest your sweet potatoes

We planted 3 different varieties; 1 red porto rican sweet potato (I know, it should be Puerto Rican, but that’s what they call it), 1 yellow porto rican, and 1 korean purple. The porto ricans we grew last year with great success, and the purples were started from tubers from Super G, and international grocery store in Greensboro. They were planted in 4 different locations in the garden. About 1/4 went into one of our new hugelkulture beds, where they were inter-planted with sorghum and cowpeas as a southern style 3 sisters garden. These did the best.

red porto rican, yellow porto rican, and korean purple sweet potatoes

Overall, the yields were not as great as last year, but still okay. We planted them much later than last year, and the fertility in many of the plots were on the low side. Still, we should have plenty of sweet potatoes to last us through the winter and into next year. This means plenty of sweet potato ginger soup! Yes!!

Small Scale Catfish Pond Stocking

November 3, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

How do you stock catfish in small pond? Particularly one that’s not easily accessed from the road or driveway?

Most pond stocking companies offer delivery services for their fish, and have big hoses and tanks to get the fish into your pond. But because our recent batch of twenty five, 8-10″channel catfish was such a small order (they only cost $20), delivery wasn’t really an option. Luckily, the fish company is able to fill up some heavy duty plastic bags with water, and some extra O2. This gives you plenty of time for a short drive, and doesn’t stress the fish out too much in the process.

Carrying catfish in a plastic bag down to the pond

Once we got home, it was a simple matter of dumping out some of the excess water and then lugging a big ole pile catfish over my shoulder and down to the pond. The fish people had left their tanks open all night, and the water was nice and cold, so we didn’t bother acclimating the fish to our pond water. We just dumped them out.

almost there…

Free to grow and eventually turn into catfish sandwiches

All in all, a very simple chore, very doable for 1 person. each bag had about 12 catfish in it, so it took 2 trips (about 10 minutes). So,if your thinking about stocking your small pond with fish, be they catfish, bluegill, or bass, don’t worry about bagging them up and bringing them if you cant find someone to deliver them. This would work even better with smaller sized fish, and you could probably stock a decent sized pond entirely with bagged fish if you planned it carefully.

We only added the 25 larger catfish because our pond is in pretty good balance, with a somewhat high population of small bluegills and some larger bass.They seem to doing well, its hard to tell, but we haven’t seen any floaters since the pond was stocked 3 days ago.

The Catfish Have Arrived!

November 2, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

A big warm welcome to the 25 newest members of Kuska Wiñasun Homestead!

channel catfish are great fish to stock in small ponds for both meat and fun

Yesterday we picked up twenty five, 7-10″ channel catfish from Carolina Fish Hatchery and brought them back to their new home, our 3/4 acre pond.They were double bagged, given a shot of oxygen in their water, then placed in 2 of our big plastic totes while we drove home to release them. They held up well during the hour drive, and so far there are no floaters at the pond.

With some luck, and a diet of small bluegills, they’ll be “eatin’ size” in no time! Stay tuned for more updates on how and why we stocked our small pond with channel catfish!

Some of My Thoughts on GMOs

October 30, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, have been in the news a good bit the last few years–from ballot initiatives to require the labeling of GMO food, to concerns about health, both human and environmental. I want to put together a post that explains my thought process and opinions when it comes to GMO food, including some discussion on some of the more disingenuous propaganda I have seen in the last few months.

First off, lets define exactly what GMO foods are. They are crops that have been genetically engineered, in laboratory settings, with DNA from viruses, bacteria, plants and animals. The most widespread example is Roundup Ready corn and soy, which have had genes from a bacteria spliced into their DNA to make them immune to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. This allows farmers to spray their fields with Roundup without worrying about killing their food crops of corn and soybeans. Sounds great, right?

Well, the thing is, when normal plants are sprayed with Roundup, they take it up and it acts like a growth hormone, causing them to grow super fast on the cellular level and eventually die as their cells burst. The problem is, the genetically modified corn and soybeans still absorb the Roundup. They have no choice but to absorb it into their cells and tissue, where it becomes part of the plant and part of the food. This isn’t something you can just wash off. It is present at the cellular level and present in the end product as well. Now, just because these corn and soy plants don’t die from drinking in gallons of Roundup, doesn’t mean that people are any more suited to consume Roundup than before. Check out the warning label on some of that stuff. It’s not something you want to take a shot of, but that’s essentially what you are doing every time you sit down to anything made with corn or soy (which is essentially everything in the supermarket these days).

bolt's first day at home, sleeping under the corn

non-GMO corn makes the best napping spot

It turns out that Roundup is not only present in all of our food, but it’s also being found in human breastmilk, drinking water, and urine. But don’t worry, the EPA and USDA will protect us. It’s simple really, they can just raise the allowable amount of pesticides in our food whenever the amount of pesticides in our food goes up! See, everyone wins! Especially the lobbyists, politicians, judges, and appointed (by both democrats and republicans) regulators at the USDA who jump back and forth between working at Monsanto and writing the policies that regulate their profits.

Now, the standard line about GMOs has been that these modifications have resulted in using less chemicals, and have increased yields and profits for farmers. That may have been true in the beginning, but when you completely saturate a field in herbicide you start breeding and selecting for herbicide resistance in the weeds. This means that you have to spray more and buy more and chemicals from the biotech companies, and eventually you end up with superweeds that are completely resistant to chemicals.

But don’t worry, the USDA will just approve another, more toxic cocktail of chemicals that can be sprayed onto new and improved GMO seeds. Like 2,4-D, which is essentially Agent Orange and definitely something I want in my corn chips.

All of this, the bio-accumulation of more and more toxic pesticides in our bodies and the environment, is just part of the problem. Farmers, initially enticed by promises of higher yields, and who switched to GMO seeds are now seeing their yields and incomes decline as they buy more sprays and are faced with fields that are saturated in toxic chemicals. In addition to rising costs and lower yields, farmers are unable to save GMO seeds which carry a patent on the genes inside them and must be purchased year after year. These patents, which are extremely controversial, have even lead to secret “seed police” going out to fields and testing farmers crops for any sign of GMO genes. They then sue these farmers for patent infringement and often win.

This is a huge problem because crops like corn, which are wind pollinated, can pollinate other fields that are miles away. The precedent in court cases like these are that it’s the organic or small farmers responsibility to fence out the GMO pollen, and not responsibility of the GMO farmer to fence it in. And then, after your seed has been infected by GMO genes, Monsanto can come and sue you for stealing their genes!

Right now, we are at a crossroads when it comes to public opinion on GMO food. The latest propaganda effort to sway critical thinkers has been particularly effective because it covers the lie with a misdirection of truth. That is the argument that we, humans, have been genetically modifying our food for thousands of years. This argument essentially equates the domestication of livestock and crops through selective breeding, to transgenic gene splicing between plants and animals. This is not the same thing. In nature, there are a limited number of interactions and results that can occur, and due to the (relatively) slow process of domestication and natural breeding the outcomes are relatively stable and their consequences are minor. This is not the case with GMOs, where the introduction of DNA from an entirely different kingdom of species can not be fully understood, especially by studies paid for by the companies set to profit the most .

This argument is a clever and devious attempt to win over those with science and history backgrounds and critical thinking skills. It is despicable, especially for an institution like the Smithsonian, to submit arguments like this, and is an indication of how deep the connections between researchers, politicians, policy makers, the media, and biotech companies like Dupont, Monsanto,Conagra, Dow, and Baer are.

I don’t really need anymore reasons to avoid GMOs, which we try to do whenever possible, but searches on sites like the ones I’ve linked to in this post (especially Dr. Mercola’s) will also turn up article after article about the dangers and health risks of GMOs. The fact that these pesticides are in our food and are bio-accumulating in our bodies and the environment, along with the impact on farmers and soil health, give me more than enough reason to support efforts like the Non-GMO Project and the labeling of genetically modified foods. We’ll see what happens in the next few years, but I think the chances are high that we will see pushes from the mainstream to loosen organic certification standards to allow certain GMO foods. I hope it doesn’t happen, but even if it does, I know the solution is to source the highest quality, nutrient dense food we can from local producers, and to grow as much of our own vegetables, fruits, meat, and eggs as we can.

A “Newt” Buddy!

October 27, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

While out harvesting a bed of sweet potatoes the other afternoon, I came across a new little buddy! A newt! I’m not sure if he was burrowing in the ground, prowling the vines for snacks, or if i accidentally buried him while digging and searching for sweet potatoes. But I was able to snap a few pics before I let him go in a different hugelkulture bed.

A Red-Spotted Newt prowling the sweet potato vines for a snack

It turns out that he/she is a eastern red spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). These guys eat small invertebrates mostly, and are a good sign that our garden is in a healthy and ecologically robust state. Some cool facts I found on the red spotted newt is that they navigate via a combination of magnetic and solar orientation, and that they have a small amount of toxin in their skin as a defense against predators.

He was moving pretty slowly, probably from the cold, and I was glad I got to hang out with him for a little. Finding newts. Just another reason to get outside and play in the dirt.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013