In A Lather

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Thursday was soap making day here at Happy Acres. We’ve got several new creations we want to try, and after a busy summer it was finally time to get down to it. And since so much time is spent on setup and cleanup, we decided to make two batches while we had everything out.

One soap I had been wanting to make was a Cocoa/Mango soap. On our January trip to Florida we stopped in Tarpon Springs and picked up several bars of goats milk soap. One of my favorites was a Mango scented bar with Cocoa butter in it. I loved the way this soap lathered up, and the mango scent reminded me of warm, tropical places – even though we about froze to death during that trip!

Cocoa Mango Soap

Our Cocoa Mango Soap creation has Cocoa Butter and Mango Butter in it, as well as Coconut, Palm, Olive and Castor oils. I am hoping this will be a nice wintertime soap, since both Cocoa and Mango Butters are noted for being good for the skin. We used a cutting tool with a serrated edge for some of the bars, and we liked the way they turned out.

Since we’re still pretty new to making soap, every batch is an experiment. My wife is the one who creates the detailed recipes, and runs them through a soap calculator to check the ingredients. She has been wanting to make a soap out of lard, so we brain-stormed and came up with Old Tyme Vanilla Soap. This one is 75% lard, and I have to admit the kitchen was really stinky while we made it!

Old Tyme Vanilla soap

For this one we used round and oval silicone molds. The soap is a beautiful white color, and the lard odor has dissipated. Both soaps are now curing down in the basement, and the smell down there is heavenly!

We’ve got several more soaps we want to make, including another one with a high percentage of olive oil as well as a hand soap that has some pumice in it. We also want to experiment with using botanicals, and I think a mint soap sounds interesting. Plus we want to make another chocolate soap. We haven’t bought any soap from the store for almost a year now, and at the rate we’re making homemade soap, we may never have to buy any again!

UPDATE:

My wife has posted recipes for the Old Tyme Vanilla and Cocoa Mango soaps at Bloom, Bake & Create

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Kale Tales

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Dave @ HappyAcres

This year looks to be a better year for kale than last year, despite record drought and heat. Last year, the birds pecked and ate almost all of my seedlings soon after planting in August. I had very few spare plants for backup, so I had to start seed again and replant. It was the first of October before I got it replanted, and that was too late for it to make much growth. We did harvest a little this spring from some plants that made it through the winter. That was disappointing, because we really like kale.

This year, I got the plants in the ground on September 1st, and covered the whole bed with bird netting. Since we were leaving soon on vacation, I mulched the bed heavily with shredded paper, and watered the plants in well. When we returned from our trip 12 days later, the plants were thriving. It looks like 2010 may well be the Year Of Kale!

Red Russian kale

I had accumulated quite a bit of kale seed, and wound up starting five different varieties indoors under lights. This will be a good test of what produces well here, and what overwinters. First up is a long time favorite of mine: Red Russian. I love the look of this kale, and I know it tastes great and usually survives the winter.

Red Winter kale

Kale #2 is Red Winter, a variety from Hudson Valley Seed Library that is said to be a strain of Red Russian that is “tender and sweet throughout the growing season”. I don’t see much resemblance to the Red Russian, as our plants have no red coloration in either the leaves or the stems. That’s ok, because regardless of the color it’s a vigorous grower.

Starbor kale

Starbor kale

Kale #3 is the only hybrid in the assortment, a variety called Starbor. The plants are compact, with curly blue-green leaves. It’s been a good grower too. We will soon know how it tastes.

Savoy Cross kale

Kale #4 is another open-pollinated variety called Savoy Cross. It is a cross between Black Tuscan and Dwarf Scotch kale.  The leaves are dark green and slightly ruffled. Nichols Garden Nursery says it is “exceptionally hardy”. We will see!

Black Tuscan kale

And Kale #5 is the beautiful Black Tuscan variety, also called Lacinato or “dinosaur kale”. These plants have been a bit slower growing, with dark blistered leaves on upright plants. I have found that this plant is not as hardy here as some of the other varieties, but we will give it some extra mulch and see how it does this year.

So far I haven’t harvested any of the kale. Since we have Swiss Chard and turnip greens to eat, I decided to wait for the kale to get frosted on, which will surely make it sweeter. Tonight they are calling for a heavy frost, with temps near 32F.  I guess we may be harvesting kale any time now!

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Pumpkin and Persimmon Time

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Dave @ HappyAcres

This week was a week of firsts for me. I was able to finally harvest a couple of things that are new to me, at least in our garden. Part of the fun of gardening is trying new things. At least it is for me!

neck pumpkin and persimmon

First up was the Neck Pumpkin. This variety is an heirloom popular in Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish communities. I got the seeds from Baker Creek, where it is listed as Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash. Ours weighed in at 5.75 pounds, though they can get as big as 20 pounds. I can see a pie (or two) in our future!

persimmon with Brown Turkey figs

Next was our first Asian Persimmon. This variety is Ichi Ki Kei Jiro, and it is a non-astringent type that is eaten while still hard and firm, like an apple. My wife and I shared this first fruit, and we both were amazed at how crunchy and sweet it was. Try eating a native persimmon while still hard and you would be puckered up for a week! Not so with this one, it was yummy.

Ichi Ki Kei Jiro persimmon

I have two trees, and I am tempted to plant another now that I have tasted just how good these fruits can be when grown here. The ones I planted are supposed to be hardy to zone 6. Many of the Asian varieties are compact, only getting between 8-12 feet tall, and all are pest and disease resistant. That is hard to beat in a fruit tree!

I also continue to get a lot of figs. I’m trying to save enough up to make a small batch of fig preserves. My wife has promised to make some English muffins next week. I am thinking how good will they be with some fig preserves slathered on them!

Another thing we enjoyed this week was our turnips. We had the greens one night and the roots another. I cook the roots much like my mother did, simmered in a bit of water along with couple of slices of bacon and seasoned with salt and pepper. These white salad turnips cooked in minutes.

Also appearing in the harvest basket this week were tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce and chard. The tomatoes and chard made their way into a frittata, and we had a salad (or two) with the lettuce. The total harvested was 17.75 pounds. For more gardener’s harvests, visit Daphne’s Dandelions!

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Fall Roundup and Cleanup Chores

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Dave @ HappyAcres

We’ve been busy here with cleaning up the gardens as well as planting fall and winter crops. This afternoon we went to work on cleaning up the church garden. The twine from the stake and weave training system needed to be removed, and the tomato vines pulled up. We are bringing the vines back so we can shred them up and put them on the compost pile. Another work session there and we should have it looking good and ready for next spring.

Yesterday I turned the compost pile I started 3 weeks ago. The pile had shrunk in size considerably, and was cooling down, so I wanted to get it mixed up. I am hoping to get this pile done before winter, and have the finished compost ready for use next spring. It had also dried out, so I watered each layer with a fish emulsion mix to give it some extra nitrogen. Hopefully that will get it cooking again. And now bin #1 is empty and ready for filling up with tomato vines and other organic material from our cleanup activities.

blueberry bush mulched and showing off fall colors

My wife has been busy cleaning up and mulching the blueberries and blackberries. She likes to go and rake up pine needles at a nearby subdivision to spread around the blueberries. Today I picked up some free used coffee grounds when I went to the grocery, and I will spread them around the blueberry bushes too.  You can’t beat free pine straw mulch and coffee grounds for acid loving plants! For the blackberries we plan on mulching with some aged straw around the canes.

cold frames in October

Last week I cleaned out the two cold frame beds and got them replanted with cool season crops like lettuce, spinach, arugula and pac choi. I pulled the basil plants that had been hanging out there all summer and made some pesto. The beds should give us greens on into December.

greenhouse cucumbers

Inside the greenhouse the fall cucumber experiment is looking good. We’ve harvested only 3 cukes so far, but there’s at least a dozen more that are setting on now. It is nice to have cucumbers to go with our salads.

greenhouse lettuce

 

And speaking of salads, the deer may have eaten the lettuce I had growing outside in window boxes, but they didn’t get to the plants in the greenhouse. There should be enough in there to keep us in salads until the plants in the cold frame are ready. I also have some mesclun mix and arugula growing in planters in the greenhouse.

mesclun mix in planter

Hopefully the plants in the greenhouse will be safe from the marauding deer – as long as they don’t figure out how to open the door!

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Mid October Harvests

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Dave @ HappyAcres

The garden is still giving us plenty to eat in the middle of October, but not so much as the fevered pace of summer harvests. Much of the veggies, like chard and lettuce, are harvested as we need them. We got a little bit of each last week, enough for salads and some sauteed chard.

leaf lettuce

Not harvested was this leaf lettuce that was in planters just outside the greenhouse. The deer decided we had put out a salad bar for them, and ate 2/3’s of it. I can’t blame the deer for trying to get a free lunch. I will be more careful in the future about leaving things unprotected.

lettuce eaten by deer

Other things are harvested now because they need to be, like the figs. The Brown Turkey and Hardy Chicago fig plants have rewarded us with over 6 pounds of figs so far this fall, almost 2 pounds of them this week alone. The Brown Turkey is the larger of the two, but while the Hardy Chicago figs are much smaller, they are just as tasty and sweet – maybe even sweeter. I’ve got enough to bake some fig bars later today.

basket of fresh figs

Once again I got just enough small fruited tomatoes to oven roast another pan of them this week. Some went into a frittata, and the rest will go into a pasta dish tonight. We have gotten so much use out of the smaller tomatoes that I will plant even more of them next year. I’ve already scouted out some new varieties to try next year (among them Red Pear, Red Fig, Beam’s Yellow Pear and Black Zebra) .

pan of roasted tomatoes

The Long Neck Pumpkins are still not quite ready to harvest. It looks like we’ll get one really nice large one, while two smaller ones are still questionable. I said I would be happy if I only got one, and it looks like I might get my wish!  I made some soup with one of the butternut squashes harvested back in August. I cut the squash in half, scooped out the seeds, then drizzled it with olive oil and sprinkled it with chipotle powder before baking. I also baked a head of garlic at the same time. When the squash was tender I pureed it and the garlic with some chicken broth and added a bit more chipotle. It made for a spicy and filling soup.

butternut squash soup

A few slicing tomatoes, a cucumber and some Fairy Tale eggplant rounded out the harvests, and the total haul for the week was 6.8 pounds. For more harvests and gardener’s reports, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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