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Category: his thoughts (page 9 of 13)

Pan Fried Bluegill with Coconut Curry Sauce

I went fishing at the pond and the water was low and clear. I caught plenty of 12 inch bass, and a handful of nice sized bluegill. The bass were released to eat as many small bluegill as possible and encourage larger ones, but the hand-sized sunnies ended up in the frying pan. After a quick gut and scale, I sprinkled some salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika and curry on the fish and fried them in coconut oil until nice and crispy.

Coconut Curry Bluegill with Jasmine Rice

I then removed the fish and added a lot more curry powder and some more coconut oil and fried some onion. Next came some green pepper and then a handful of our dried basil and some garlic. After this cooked a bit, I added equal parts coconut milk and chicken stock until I had a little more sauce than I wanted to end up with. I cooked this down until it thickened up a bit, then spooned it over the hot fish and warm jasmine rice. MMM… good.

Yeah… It was good.

Bluegill, bream, perch, sunfish, or whatever you want to call them are some of the tastiest and sweetest whitefish around. It also helps that the best thing you can do for a bluegill population is to harvest as many as possible so that their growth isn’t stunted. So get out there with some worms and bring some bluegills home!

Bolt’s Bush: A Dog’s Best Way to Beat the Heat

May 27, 2014 / jason / 2 Comments

Now that summer is rolling in and temperatures are quickly rising into the 90’s during the afternoon, a dog needs a way to stay cool and keep from overheating. While Emma and I can hang out in the carport porch and sip on iced spearmint tea, Bolt, our 1 year old black lab/boxer/? dog has to find other ways to avoid the hot NC sun.

He is somewhat of a wuss when it comes to hot weather and can often be found hogging the floor fan, or nestling right up to the AC vent to stay cool without a second thought for those of us “downwind.” However, when he is outside with us none of these options exist. So he has to be creative…

Take this bush for instance. It sits smack dab in the middle of Bolt’s outdoor area.

A lone bush in our side yard, the area where bolt hangs outside.

A lone bush in our side yard, the area where Bolt hangs out outside.

Notice anything interesting about it? No? Let’s get a closer look…

It’s Bolt! The shade of this bush is the perfect place to beat the NC heat!

Hahahahaha! This bush is Bolt’s preferred hideout from the summer sun, and where he can most often be found when the thermometer dips above 83 degrees. Here he can snooze in the shade, roll in the dirt, and quickly ambush anyone foolish enough to casually walk by his bush (and scare the pants off me as I walk by with headphones in).

This got me thinking about how to make his bush an even better summer getaway and design it specifically for a dog’s summertime needs. Number 1 is shade–and any shrub or bush will do the job–but maybe a plant like rosemary, with anti-insect properties would take this up a notch, not to mention provide great herbs for the kitchen. What about planting some nice geraniums around it to help repel mosquitoes, the vector of heartworms and annoying itchiness. Maybe some pennyroyal, or fleabane to combat fleas, and some chicory in case he feels the need to fight some internal parasites.

I think this would be a really cool permaculture design project, and is definitely something I am going to think more about. Let me know if you know of any other plants that would fit well in a dog’s play area. But for now, you can find Bolt enjoying the shade and solitude of his bush, waiting eagerly for the cooler temperatures of fall, or for us to turn the AC on and bring him inside.

Venison Stew with Sweet Potatoes and Garlic Scapes

May 22, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Tonight we ate dinner out on the porch and watched the fireflies. We ate a version of our savory venison stew, but this time I added a bunch of our freshly cut garlic scapes, and a couple of sweet potatoes from last year’s garden.

Venison stew with sweet potatoes and garlic scapes

It was dark out when I took the picture, and we ended up eating out of plastic tuppeware to save on dish use, but it tasted great. The garlic scapes added a great flavor to the broth, and the sweet potatoes were delicious with the tender venison roast. A green pepper, white onion, a healthy splash of red wine, beef broth, and some sage and oregano rounded out the soup, and made for a great meal out in the cool Stokes County air. Yummm!!

Wood Wool and the Magic of Mulch

May 20, 2014 / jason / 2 Comments

I love mulch. It makes me smile when I see a bed or fruit tree covered with a thick layer of mulch. Mulch hold in soil moisture and reduces irrigation needs, protects soil microorganisms from temperature extremes, blocks weeds, and slowly adds organic matter by breaking down and feeding the worms.

We mulch with leaves, sticks, paper plates, coffee grounds, palm fronds, and any other organic material we can find. But recently, we scavenged a bunch of wood wool, or excelsior, and this wood byproduct makes awesome mulch.

It’s basically shredded aspen wood used as packing material, and it’s some of the best mulch we have ever used. It looks good, stays in place, and is easily applied around vegetable plants. We’re in the process of putting it on all of our raised garden beds, and if there is any left over, we may put some around our fruit trees also. I love mulch.

A Rainy Day on the Homestead

May 15, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

We got some much needed rain today here at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead, more than an inch and it’s still coming. Rain plays a role in the type of chores you can get done on a homestead, and today I spent most, but not all, of the time indoors, starting some more plants from seed, and potting up some small seedlings that germinated a while ago.

My planting station in the basement; potting soil, containers, root knife, and an iPhone for watching documentaries on Youtube.

Many of the perennial herbs that were planted in the middle of March (elecampane, marshmallow, and feverfew to name a few) were a bit crowded in the small pots they germinated in and so I transplanted them into larger containers so as not to stunt their growth. I noticed that while these plants were slow to germinate, they had well developed root systems much larger than I expected for seedlings that looked so tiny. I also planted a few things from seed that we are very excited about growing: Monkey Puzzle Pine, St. John’s Wort, Ashwaganda, Blue Bean, and Lovage.

A healthy elecampane seedling, a great medicinal herb for lung and digestive problems.

By this point it had been raining for a while, and our garden swales were starting to fill up. I noticed that they weren’t filling up evenly, and figured that it was a great time to get the hoe out and start leveling the contour paths. The small amount of water, about an inch or two, made it easy to find the high spots and then scrape that soil to the low spots. Then it was just walking up and down the swale, seeing how deep the water was at different spots and filling in with clay as needed.

Taking advantage of some summer rain to work on the garden swales.

This was pretty fun work in the rain, and I felt like a rice farmer in China working on his paddies. The combination of a steady, rhythmic rain, and the watching the water slowly creep along the swale as it became level was very relaxing.

garden swales permaculture

So today was a rainy day not wasted. Some inside chores, and then some outside ones made easier with the help of the rain. We can also thank the rain for watering in our garden, filling up our ponds, keeping our shiitake mushroom logs moist, and charging up our forests with a much needed soak.

The Value of a Fruit Tree Investment

May 13, 2014 / jason / 1 Comment

I wrote yesterday on how to plant fruit trees and it got me thinking about the potential value and return on investment that a food forest, or even just 1 fruit tree can provide. Today I want to look at what an apple tree can yield during it’s lifespan, and maybe try and persuade you that planting one just may be the best investment opportunity around.

One of our heritage apple trees with a tomato cage to protect from deer, and fava beans planted around it to produce mulch and fix nitrogen.

Okay. Let’s look at a semi-dwarf apple tree, like the William’s Favorite apple that I showed in the pictures of yesterday’s post. A semi-dwarf apple tree will cost anywhere from 15-40 dollars and you can definitely find a high quality, heritage variety for under 30 dollars. After planting, you can expect some yield in 2 years, but 3-5 years is when this tree will really hit it’s stride.

How much does a semi-dwarf apple tree produce? Around 4-7 bushels of apples per year. A bushel of apples is about 45 pounds, so that makes 180-325 pounds of apples every year. That’s a lot of apples. It’s actually 500-880 medium-sized apples, and would likely satisfy your “apple a day”.

How much are these apples worth? Well, first off, go down to a store and try to buy a beyond organic, no spray William’s Favorite apple. How much is it? It doesn’t exist. You can’t buy it at a store, but we’ll substitute organic apples for our calculations. So, organic apples run anywhere from 1.99/lb. to 3.99/lb., but I’ll use the lower number to be on the safe side. So, at 2 dollars per pound, 1 tree will produce $360-650 worth of apples per year.

But what can you do with hundreds of pounds of apples? Well, you could make homemade apple pie, 60 -100 pies per tree actually.

What about cider? Did you know that President John Adams would drink a tankard of hard cider every morning to prevent gas? Well, your mature apple tree can produce enough apples to make 12-24 gallons of cider per year. That’s 128-256 bottles, or 21-42 6 packs of craft cider. If you’re not a cider drinker, I’ll tell you that a 6 pack of quality cider costs about 10 bucks, and most of these are made from the rejects of the fresh fruit market.

Now, for how long can you expect this investment to return? While standard apple trees, those grown on full size rootstocks, can easily live 100 years, semi-dwarf apples typically live from 20-25 years. So your $30 apple tree will produce around 5000 pounds of apples, enough to make 1500 apple pies, or 600 6 packs of apple cider. And thanks to inflation, who knows how much these will cost in the next 25 years.

I’d say that’s a pretty good deal. And after the first year, once the tree is established, it will require very little maintenance. Now if this 1 tree is surrounded by support species plants that fix nitrogen, attract pollinators, and provide mulch and predatory insect habitat, and maybe a small swale to hydrate the soil and reduce water needs, then this 1 tree becomes a self-supporting, and highly valuable aspect of your property.

And while you can drive out right now and buy a 2-3 year old apple tree to plant, you cannot buy a 10 year old tree that is in full production, with a root system 20 feet deep and capable of surviving drought like no corn field or garden can. All of these, and many more, are reasons to consider planting a fruit tree or two on your property. It’s not that hard, and can be an extremely profitable investment.

Planting Trees: A Quick How To

May 12, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

As we wrap up the initial planting of our backyard food forest, I thought it made sense to put together a post on how exactly we plant our fruit trees. We already uploaded a video about protecting fruit with tomato cages, so check that out if you haven’t already, but today I’m going to give a quick how to on planting bare-root fruit trees.

This spot in the front yard is just out from the dripline of a big oak tree and should get plenty of sun.

First off, decide where the best place to plant your fruit tree is. Some things to consider are the directions of your primary winds, how much sun the tree will get, what sort of shade the surrounding trees or structures may provide, and also how much shade your tiny fruit tree will provide when it is mature. It’s also nice to be near a source of water for both irrigation and planting if you can.

Next, I like to scratch off the top layer of sod or leaf litter, depending on where I’m planting, with either a mattock or shovel. This makes it easier to break ground, and also disrupts weed and grass growth in the area right around the young tree. Now it’s time to start digging. I like to dig a hole that is bowl shaped, with gently sloping sides, and a little deeper than the root ball on the dormant tree. For most of the trees we planted this year, this turned out to be a hole that was two and a half to three feet wide, and 18 to 24 inches deep.

Make sure your hole is big enough and you don’t cram the roots in!

After the hole is dug, I like to rough up the sides and bottom a little to make sure the tree roots can grow out into the native soil. I now backfill the hole a bit, and place the root ball of the tree on a small pile of dirt and see if the depth is right.

I try to plant the tree at the same level is was planted at in the nursery, a couple inches below the graft union. This is important because if you accidentally plant the graft union below ground, the tree will grow as a full size tree and you will lose any semi-dwarfing or dwarfing effects. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you spend money on a dwarf apple tree that only gets 6 ft. tall, you probably won’t be happy when it ends up being 60 ft. tall.

Start packing in the dirt around the roots, making sure to bust up any big clumps.

Once I have the right depth, I pack dirt around the roots of the tree, being careful to try and break up any large clumps of our beautiful, red Carolina Clay. At this point, I may add a handful of our native forest soil, in order to inoculate the young tree’s roots with mature soil bacteria and beneficial fungal mycelium to help with the uptake and cycle of nutrients.

Fill in the rest of the hole and water deeply to remove any air pockets.

After that, I fill the hole in completely, and perform any grading or minor earth shaping to channel runoff and rain water. Ideally, now is when you would plant a few support species next to the tree, to help it grow. It’s also the best time to add a thick layer of mulch around the base of the tree, and then give it a good long drink to water it in.

And that’s pretty much it. All in all, after you get a few under your belt, it takes about 15-25 minutes per tree, depending on the size of the roots. Not too bad when you consider the value of a mature fruit tree, and how much food security it provides.

Unique and Rare Potato Varieties for 2014

May 6, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

The seed potatoes that we were waiting on arrived the other day, and within 48 hours we had them in the garden. In total, we planted 9 varieties and we’ll buy 1 more type at the supply store soon to make 10.

We tried to keep the number of plants relatively even, so that we can compare yields among varieties, in addition to flavor, store-ability, and disease resistance. We did this by cutting larger seed potato pieces into smaller pieces, but making sure that each piece still had at least 1 nice eye to grow from. Seed pieces the size of an egg, a chicken egg that is, we planted whole. We ended up planting 176 seed potato pieces, which in a perfect word would make 176 plants. We’ll see….

Seed Potatoes ready to be planted in the garden.

Most of the varieties we planted are either rare heirloom potato varieties, or delicious gourmet varieties. Here’s a brief rundown on what went in the ground.

Of the early potatoes, we planted Early Ohio, an heirloom from Vermont grown since 1871 with a nutty flavor, and Cobbler, another heirloom from the 1800’s that is said to have been discovered by an Irish shoe maker.

We planted a few mid-season varieties, including Carola, a German potato with a creamy yellow flesh, Kennebec, a popular and high yielding variety grown all over the country, and Purple Majesty, a beautiful purple skinned and fleshed variety high in anthocyanins, an antioxidant found in blueberries, currants, and aronia.

Purple Majesty seed potatoes. Check out that color!

The late season varieties were Bintje, a Dutch potato from 1910, German Butterball, a delicious yellow fleshed gourmet type, Katahdin, a high yielding and long keeping variety from 1932, and Red Pontiac, the red potato we grew last year that knocked our socks off and made us potato snobs.

We also planted a fingerling variety named Ozette. This potato has the best backstory of all the potatoes we planted this year. The Ozette potato, unlike every other potato grown in the US came directly from South America by Spanish Explorers in 1791. They brought it with them form the Andes, and it was planted in a small garden outside of a fort in the Pacific Northwest. When the Spaniards abandoned the fort, the Native Makah people found the Ozette Fingerling potato, and have planted, and relied on it as part of their diet every year since.

Ozette seed potatoes. This Andean heirloom has a story behind it that matches it’s amazing flavor.

All other potatoes were first taken to Europe, where the Irish, Prussians, and the rest of the Continent developed new varieties, and then brought these varieties to North America when they immigrated centuries later. The Ozette potato is said to be one of the tastiest potatoes around, and having tasted more than a few Peruvian potatoes myself, I can’t wait.

Grazing and Herding Geese is Simple, Easy, and Productive

May 2, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

Our new flock/gaggle/herd of homestead geese has been a ton of fun to watch and interact with. Compared to chickens (standards or bantams), the geese have way more to offer in terms of personality, and I find myself honking with them in excitement more often than not. They are also more self sufficient than chickens, and are obtaining a good deal of their nutrition from pasture and grass. Geese prefer the tender new growth of vegetation, so we need to protect our new seedlings and young vegetables from their grazing.

Nothing like hanging out with the geese and enjoying a nice cup of coffee

Apart from this, managing a goose herd is pretty easy. We have them in a cattle panel paddock that we move every day or two. When we are at work, they stay in there, and graze the pasture/lawn, and swim in a kiddie pool/pond. On days when we are home and working outside, we let them wander a bit more freely and fence them out of areas we’d like to protect. If they ever wander too far, they are extremely easy to herd back to where you want them, and by just walking behind them 1 person can easily direct them anywhere they please.

The geese seem to want to stay close to us, but if they wander too far…

It’s very easy to herd them back to where you want them to be

They then resume grazing on clover, grass, and lawn weeds

I have been messing around with different portable fencing ideas, using both bird netting and chicken wire in combination with step in posts, and Emma and I have decided that we prefer 3 foot tall chicken wire with white step in posts. This combo is the best for visibility, and is also tops at keeping the geese in/out. The chicken wire easily clips to the posts, so there is no need to worry about zip ties or carbiners, and the system is easily put up or taken down.

This system of portable fencing should help us to better focus the energy of our goose herd, and allow us to practice our own form of intensive rotational grazing. If we add chickens, or even pigs, than we are well on our way to a sort of Salatin or Savory multi-species grazing system. This, in combination with our mineral supplement mix, will increase the fertility and soil life on our land, and make our entire homestead more efficient and productive.

This makes geese a great livestock option for the small farm or homestead

Some of Our Goals at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead

April 29, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

I thought it was time to lay out a post about some of the goals, hopes, and wishes we have about our homesteading endeavor here at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead. We’ve been out here in the country for over a year now, and sometimes I talk with people and I feel like they misunderstand our motivations and goals for homesteading. Nothing major, just some minor misconceptions.

First off, we aren’t trying to grow 100% of our food, medicine, fuel and clothes. We go to the grocery store about as much as any other family, and we are not burning bio-diesel made from cattails in our trucks to get there. We are hooked up to the grid, and watch movies, t.v. shows (my favorite is Survivor), and occasionally blog on the internet. Now, that’s not to say that we aren’t actively trying to reduce all of these things, except the blogging, and turn our homestead from a consumer to a producer, but we realize that achieving 100% self sufficiency is close to impossible, and not desirable

we try to produce as much as possible from our garden because it is the healthiest food money can’t buy

We do have a garden, and we try to grow as much produce as possible without the use of toxic chemicals. We preserve some of this food if we have surpluses, either by freezing, fermenting, or in the case of sweet potatoes and other root crops, storing in the guest bedroom. This spring we are expanding both our annual vegetable gardens, and our perennial based food forest in the hopes of producing more of our own fruits and vegetables.

We do this because you cannot buy this kind of quality at the store. This fresh, and completely free from any, whether organically certified by the USDA or not, toxic herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers and fungicides. We grow varieties of things that aren’t available in stores, and some fruits and vegetables so rare most people haven’t heard of them (loquats, seaberry, paw paw etc.).

We want to eat stuff that is actually good and we try to avoid stuff that isn’t. But we still eat out. We order pizza every once in a while, or stop at a fast food joint even though we know it’s crap. We know that soda made from GMO high fructose corn syrup is less than ideal, but every once in a while, we’ll crack open a can of coke.

We aren’t aiming for perfection because perfect is the enemy of good. Our goal is live healthy and enjoy life. To raise a family out here, to connect with our community (we need to get better here), and to learn a whole lotta stuff along the way. An all or nothing approach won’t get us very far, so join us, as we grow together on the path towards better food, better life, and self reliance. Let us know your homestead goals, and where you are trying to make the biggest difference in your life.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013