a case for overseeding, stoopid.

...

we got swiss chard, broccoli raab, baby collards, baby cabbage, baby kale, arugula, baby broccoli, salad mix thinnins, baby dill, parsley, french tarragon, baby cilantro, parlsey and thinly sliced radish. bag salad's got nothing on this.

      

      it's fancy, but it'll work. we may all be but blips in history, so let's celebrate that.  food production is in all ways beautiful and wonderful and good.  "what's so asinine about food production is that such a small amount of people do it, and such a large amount of people expect it."  So sayeth the Joe Knee.  wanna talk about art? the act of creation? how about growing and consuming vital energies? say what you will about thinning, babies are delicious ~ especially vegetative ones ~ and i spent an hour peacefully examining, caressing and culling the herd.

• joani's going off on qwerty now . . . as a sexist tool. she hates us, sticks and holes. it's cool tho, cuz when she says "they," she means "wii."

     call yer thinnings "microgreens" and you can even exploit the heirs.
  

shua & joe-knee out; to live the good life

My No-Cost Keyhole Bed

  I learned about keyhole beds from Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, an awesome permaculture primer.  The keyhole bed morphs the customary rectangular garden bed into a pleasing circle, with a narrow path to the center.  This layout maximizes the growing space by minimizing the area need for pathways.  I've been wanting to try it out, the berry bushes in the back were begging for some special treatment and they were already conveniently planted in a circular arrangement.
   A large part of my low-cost experimentation consists of gathering materials, so when i say my keyhole bed was no-cost, what i actually mean is that i spent no cash but lots of time.
  Let's get into the process:

• My first step was laying out the circle, which i did by pounding a bamboo stake in the center of the berries and tying another stake to it 6ft away. Then i traced a rough circle through the grass and removed about 6 inches of grass around the periphery.
• Next i began the process of sheet mulching (also called lasagna gardening).  Basically, with sheet mulching you're composting in place to produce friable soil.  There are lots of reasons to sheet mulch instead of tilling.  First of all, tilling is a major hassle, i don't like it.  Second, our soil is a complex ecosystem composed of creepy-crawlies, microorganisms, fungi and nutrients. Tilling disrupts this ecosystem. I prefer the long-term benefits of letting nature work the soil over the short-term benefits of tilling or digging, but of course there is a balance.  I will double-dig some beds once to loosen heavy clay soils if it's needed, but usually it's not if you plan ahead enough to afford yourself a little patience.
•   The first step in sheet mulching is to lay down a layer of cardboard or newspaper.  This helps to kill grasses and weeds by blocking light and it invites our worm friends up from the nether-reaches to feast on the organic material you lay on top.  A warning: don't use cardboard or newspaper with colored inks.  Colored inks often contain traces of toxic substances that can leach into the soil over time.  Blank cardboard is best, black ink is second best (now usually soy-based ink).  I gather cardboard whenever workers in the dairy section of the grocery store are restocking (Saturday afternoon at my store).  Don't be a jerk, ask nicely for the cardboard and take it all, colored ink or not. This saves the workers from having to take out the cardboard, so they'll be grateful, and you don't seem like some sort of yuppie cardboard snob while you're in their way picking out only the cardboard you want.  When you get the cardboard home, remove any tape or glue, cut off blank cardboard from the boxes with colored ink (usually one or two little flaps), and put all the colored ink sections in the recycling.  I've found it's best to soak the cardboard in a pail of water before you put it down. If you use newspaper, you want to lay down 10-15 page thick sections, and definitely soak them or they have a tendency to drift off. 
•   So, i've laid down my cardboard, making sure to overlap lest any beastly grasses should rear their ugly heads.  Now i've gotta start adding organic materials. I start sheet mulches the same way i start compost piles, with a layer of carbon-heavy material like leaves, woodchips or straw.  In this i case i used an oak branch that fell into my yard.  Next i add kitchen scraps, more leaves, grass clippings, anything close basically.  I also tossed in my nearly finished compost. 

 Generally, when you sheet mulch in the fall, you moisten the bed the same way you would compost, so it has the consistency of a wrung-out sponge, then you cover it with black plastic and let it all cook down until you're ready to plant in the spring.  This, however, is an experiment. So instead of covering my little baby, i'm going to continue adding organic materials throughout the fall.
  My keyhole bed is going to be my perennial polyculture experiment, meaning the focus will be on plants that don't require annual plantings (i'll probably have some self-seeding annuals in the mix), all mixed in together.  I've ordered egyptian walking onion bulbs that i'll plant by digging through the mulch and planting in the soil as soon as they arrive and i'll get some medicinal/edible plants like borage, comfrey, bee balm, garlic chives, tarragon...who knows?  This is the bed that will likely determine it's own planting based on what i find when... thanks for coming.
Want one?

paper plate pizza and other late night mastications

Stand and Deliver, O Children...

    Please note Exhibit A:

Because i respect You, i am shamed to admit that we've had several pizza nights since i promised to post the paper plate pizza recipe.

I swear i'm not a bad kid, just easily distracted, consistently engaged and persistently curious.

Meaning, of course,

i'm prone to lapses of consideration.

Forgiveness, please.

Above, you'll see a fresh concoction, compared to which the paper plate (read: convenience) variety pales. Nevertheless, at least with homemade processed food i know how to pronounce all the ingredients. And i'd like to become a pronuncitarian in addition to my other adopted dietary labels.

  The dough really is what makes this pie so ... i can't even find the words... i lifted it from here.  Follow the directions and you'll do fine.  But make some notes: the dough is very soft if made with all-purpose flour (what i use until i get a grain mill). So you have to be sensitive when you stretch it out or it rips easily.  I'd use bread flour if i had it or add a few tablespoons of vital wheat gluten if i'd thought about it.  The dough recipe through the link will walk you through the mechanics on the prep end.  I usually spend a few hours whenever i can and double the recipe to make a dozen dough balls, then roll them in an oiled bowl, bag them in cheap food storage bags (so you can turn the bag inside out onto a floured surface later), and pack them 6 dough-balls per gallon freezer bag. The day before pizza night , i move 3 to the fridge: 2 for pizza night and 1 for paperplatepizza (heretofore refferred to as PPP).

  There are a few things i do with the sauce, but there are infinite variations waiting to be tasted. So experiment or stagnate. All choices are ours for the making.  Joe-Knee's not a fan of tomato sauce in general, so i make a white sauce by mincing some garlic, onion and whatever herbs i have laying or growing around, and pouring maybe 2-3tablespoons of olive over it in a small glass container. Sprinkle some salt and crack some pepper into it if you want to church it up a bit. Then leave the glass container on the stovetop as you cook down some tomato sauce or preheat the oven.  The earlier you concoct this oil sauce, the more the flavors coat the pie.  

   For tomato sauce, i spice up some store-bought pasta sauce until next season when i hope to replace our purchased sauce with preserved sauce from the Amish Paste Tomatoes....mmmm... One of the big cans is usually enough for 2-4 pizzas depending on how much sauce you like (just remember: more sauce/toppings=longer cook time).  Adding any fresh vegetables to yer mater-sauce is always a good idea. I belong to the "grab&mince whatever we have around and toss it in" school of pizza sauce makery, but i always include garlic, onion, oregano or thyme, basil, and a pinch of sugar more often than not.  Now listen up, this is important:  allow your sauce to cool before you slather it on your stretched dough.  Hot sauce will eat right through the tender, delicious dough you've poured your heart and soul into and result in a napalm-like soggy mess. Trust me. Or don't. Who am i to tell you what to do? I wouldn't do it again, though, tell ya that much.

  Now, here's what makes a PPP a PPP:  the dough-balls made from that recipe are the perfect size for paper plates, so after you stretch out your dough you can just lay it on a paper plate and top it.  Sad to say, i haven't even attempted to try freezing any toppings on the pizza...i have a problem... a cheese pizza problem: i'd like to call it minimalism but in my heart i know i'm lying.  Might be a good idea to top it with fresh foods right before you pop the frozen finished product in the oven. 

Anyway, then i cover it with wax paper. Can't say i know why, but it's something i do. Maybe it has something to do with sticky dough...? Maybe i have a nondisclosure agreement so i couldn't even tell you that i get paid to sell it....if i did...which i don't.

Cut-Rite

Wrap the whole she-bang in a gallon freezer bag and toss it in your ice-hole. I don't know how long they last in there because i always find a reason to eat them. 

When you're ready to eat one too, cook it the way you should always cook pizza:

• as hot as you can get your oven, 
• on stone or tile (preheated 30min-1hr preferred) or the underside of a baking sheet or flat cookie sheet (on which you build your pie),
• as close to the heat source as possible (stone on floor of gas ovens, lowest rack in electric models)

In about 10 minutes you should see one of these in front of you:

and from your periphery, a BLUR!

the insidious suburban pizza mole!

from cyberspace with love,

shua.

P.S.  My friend Brando suggested that i post a cost analysis on the blog, and i think it's a great idea. This being, after all, a blog about low-cost living.  So look forward to cost analyses for future projects. In the mean time, here's the approximate cost of 12 PPPs:

• $4 bag o' flour
• $1.50 can o' sauce
• $6 worth of cheese
• 75cents worth of yeast
• $1-2 olive oil
• 75cents garlic

So that's about 15smackers for 12pizza pies, for an average cost of $1.25 per pizza. Zonino. Of course if you buy more toppings or like extra cheese your cost will go up, but the best toppings are always straight out of the garden.