January 8th, 2012 by Marc Opperman

We’re supposed to get a new deluge of rain tonight, but I’m a little reticent to revel in that. I could jinx our chances.

That said, I got all the leaves mulched into fine particles suitable for direct mulching or the compost bins. I made perhaps 6 wheelbarrows of fine leaf litter, some of which went around the raspberry and blackberry canes. Much of the rest went into the compost bins, where I turned it in to be amongst the happy microorganisms that are already burning overtime to create some rich soil.

I finished my rain barrels last week in time for anything that might happen tonight. I’m really happy with the setup. Two barrels, a small length of garden hose between them, and some swank brass spigots. They are happily leak-proof after the application of both silicon and construction adhesive. The best part is that the pair of them cost about $70. And that includes the concrete block-and-brick bases.

I have radishes, lettuce, onions and carrots in progress right now, as well as some baby kale, cauliflower and broccoli. I probably could have planted these earlier, but they seem happy for now, and the radishes, for one, appear nearly ready for harvest.

December 17th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

My old makeshift rain barrel platform (constructed of pieces of old pressure-treated lumber) was sinking into the ground, and my rain barrel was listing. So I got a few concrete blocks, some spare brick, and a couple 24″ pavers and constructed a new one:

It is very sturdy, level and ultimately reusable. Nothing is mortared together – just heavy enough to stay in place, even if the barrel is empty of the 440 pounds of water it could hold.

I arranged the blocks in such a way that toads and other small critters have an opening to the interior and can access the inside and hide out in little “rooms” formed by the different blocks.

I want to go back to the homebrew store and buy another barrel. I’m eager to double my capacity.

November 23rd, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I have mentioned more than once I want to incorporate chickens into my garden work. I’ve collected materials for the coop construction – cedar posts, scrap tin roof material, etc. – in an effort to use as little new material as possible. After all, one aim in doing this is to be as resourceful as possible in reusing materials. And to keep costs down.
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September 28th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I haven’t been all that motivated to write considering I’ve spent less than a couple hours in the yard in the past month, and that was mainly just to haul brush to the curb for the City of Austin collection day in our area. The cooler weather has been was nice, but with zero rain during the past few days of scattered thunderstorms, my yard is still a desiccated wasteland, and somewhat depressing to behold.

I did remove a native (and dead) inland sea oats grass from a large pot and move a stray little bluestem grass to the pot. I tried something that I hope will help foster deep roots and some moisture retention in the pot, as well as help some of my potted plants survive drought. And the seeds of the idea came from a project I’d been a part of.

A couple years ago I volunteered on a City of Austin Wildland Conservation Division work project to plant little bluestem in an arroyo on a preserve to mitigate erosion. We used a donated (but otherwise expensive) product called DriWater to help establish the transplants in the absence of continued watering.

The idea behind the product is that a non-toxic, degradable cellulose matrix bearing water within a carton would slowly release the water to the plants over an extended period as soil microbes helped the cellulose matrix decay – ideal for a preserve where watering wouldn’t be available. I heard anecdotally that the product helped and that some of the grasses got established.

Fast-forward to the past year. I have a toddler bumbling around, and one thing we certainly have is a supply of diapers. Occasionally one tears or fails in some way while still clean. It occurred to me at one point diapers probably use the same technology as the Dri-Water does, even if they don’t come pre-loaded with a water supply. (You need a toddler for that.)

I’d collected a few “bad” diapers, eventually to support my experiment. I tore the elastic and extraneous junk off a diaper and, while planting the little bluestem in a pot, buried the diaper pieces in the soil.

Diapers seem to hold buckets of… liquid. I’m curious to see if this helps the transplant grass weather our drought. I might try a planting in a raised bed with some diaper pieces at some point near transplants, or adjust potted plants to have more than one diaper in them. It’s been a week, and so far my transplanted bluestem looks good despite minimal watering.

drought, little bluestem, water

August 20th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Since Austin is hurtling toward heavier restrictions on outdoor watering (Sept. 6 if our rainfall doesn’t improve), I’m considering a rather drastic experiment – no supplemental watering of anything in my yard.

This more or less means no Fall vegetable garden. But it will be an opportunity to see how tough my various natives are. And if I lose some St. Augustine grass in the deal, so much the better.

I was rather spooked by an article in the New York Times yesterday on the possibility that Texas could see another decade-long drought – it has seen droughts lasting as long as 50 years in the past – and that what we’ve endured so far this Summer could appear mild by comparison.

I’m trying to convince my family to accelerate our plans to move to Portland. So far no success.

drought, natives, water

July 15th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I’m nothing if not a do-it-yourselfer. I love the challenge of taking stuff I already have and finding the best way to make something useful out of it. Part of this comes genetically – my grandfather was, and my father is, crafty this way. And like them, I keep a lot of salvaged stuff around so that I have options when it comes time to make something.

But one project eluded me – a rainbarrel. It’s been hard for me to locate a source of barrels suitable for tinkering. Most sellers know a finished rainbarrel sells for between $100 and $200, so they tend to price empty food-grade barrels accordingly.

Back when I wanted to make fresh mozzarella, I stopped by Austin Homebrew Supply since they are apparently the only place in town supplying the ingredients for cheese-making. However, they sell empty 55-gallon barrels very cheaply, as well. They have a supply of them because they sell beer-brewing malt syrup in bulk. These barrels are a very sturdy blue plastic with a metal ring and rubber gaskets to seal the top. I bought one on the spot the last time I was there.

It didn’t take too much tinkering to create a functional rainbarrel.

First, I had to clean the leftover malt out of the barrel. Because malt is basically a sugary syrup, this was a pretty pleasant-smelling – if sticky – task. I didn’t use any soap, and all of the leftover water, I poured directly on parts of my garden.

I drilled a half-inch hole near the base of the barrel to accommodate a spigot. I had a cool, weathered brass spigot leftover from who-knows-where.

I also had an appropriate gasket and half-inch nut for the inside to secure the spigot.

Next I cut a hole in the lid of the barrel. The lid already had two threaded 3-inch holes in it, but I needed something bigger to be able to use a proper downspout diverter ($8 at Home Depot). I used my Skil saw to cut a hole in the lid that matched the diameter of the downspout diverter. I had marked this with a Sharpie.

Inside the lid, I fashioned some metal window screen as a catch-basket for debris and mosquito larvae pouring in from my downspouting. Currently, zip ties hold it in place, but I may use a stainless-steel hose clamp in the future. Cleaning the trap is done by removing (and inverting) the barrel lid steel hoop and the diverter assembly.

I built a stand for the barrel using some pieces of 2×6 lumber and cedar fence slats. It’s not gorgeous, but it does the trick of elevating the barrel 18 inches to give me head pressure for watering parts of the yard. The wooden part of the stand rests on some concrete pavers to help reduce the chance the wood rots.

So far I’ve spent a total of $28 to make it. It’s not perfect, though. What this barrel is lacking is any form of overflow arrangement, or way to connect it to a second barrel. Adding a second barrel would be nice since 55 gallons doesn’t go far. I want to figure out a better way to connect the spigot (it leaks a tiny bit). Also, I didn’t remove the St. Augustine grass from below the stand. A gravel base beneath it might be tidier. In April I made a concrete block stand for a friend, and I might try that model in the future. Concrete blocks are cheap.

Still, we’ve had a couple brief downpours since I built this barrel, and even a few minutes of rain fill it completely to the point of overflowing. Now if we’d only have a few more.

barrel, diy, rain, rainwater, water

July 13th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

It’s been a bunch of weeks since I last posted. Life has tossed me some loops, and it’s been a rough ride. My main concern as far as this space is concerned was that I thought I would no longer have this house and would be returning to the land of rental hell. I had stopped doing anything in the yard besides collecting tomatoes and mowing. It was part of my process of letting go. Somewhere in the midst of feeling like I was needing to let go, I realized my garden is my biggest, most significant place of sanctuary in my life. It’s also one of the bigger ways in which I express my creativity.

Leaving the house appears like it will no longer be the case. I won’t go into those details much, but me keeping the house involves a lot of outside help, for which I’m very grateful. Getting a decent full-time job after my 3 months of unemployment also helps.

This means I feel much better re-engageing with my ‘blog and the greater gardener community on the whole. While I missed the opportunity to apply for Travis County Master Gardener training (just too much uncertainty at the time to go through with it), I still hope to build my friendships with that community, too, as well as the other wonderful people I’ve met through the Austin Garden Bloggers page on Facebook.

I have some topics for posts in mind, so I hope you’ll join me as I re-energize this space!

June 3rd, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Sometimes I have a cheezy thing or two to say here, but usually it’s not about something edible. And I’ve never wanted to stray too far into the realm of food blogging. There are people – some of whom I count as friends – that do that far better than I can.

But I got a wild hair and decided to make mozzarella cheese. I was inspired by two things: a comment from my friend Dana (who remarked she wanted to try making her own mozzarella) and a bumper crop of tomatoes. The more things I can find to eat with tomatoes, the better. What’s better than fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil?

To make mozzarella (and I gather other cheeses, as well) you need a few basic ingredients – calcium chloride, citric acid, rennet, cheese salt and milk. For me, the timing of making cheese came as a gallon of organic whole milk was passing its sell-by date in our refrigerator. Normally, this wouldn’t phase me much, but I don’t drink whole milk – it’s for Lukas.

Rennet – a complex of enzymes used to curdle milk and traditionally taken from calf stomachs and now often made from plant sources – is a little hard to come by if you’re just relying on normal, local stores. Wheatsville, Sprouts and Sun Harvest don’t carry it. But a helpful lady at Wheatsville (and, come to think of it, my friend Phoebe) mentioned she thought Austin Homebrew Supply carried it.

Living close to their store, I dropped by. I hadn’t been in their new location on Metric, but the shiny gadgets, the yeasty smell in the air (or was it malty?) and the bins of chocolaty grains all took me back to the times I made a few batches of yummy brown ale. But I was there for cheese, and cheese-making stuff I found in their coolers. A $4 kit contained everything – plus instructions – I would need to make four batches of fresh mozzarella.

Other junk you need are a non-aluminum 6-quart stock pot, a kitchen thermometer (I used an analog candy thermometer), and a couple 5 quart microwaveable bowls. I didn’t have a stock pot big enough, but I found a nice enameled steel one at Target that wasn’t too expensive.

I could post all of the instructions for doing this, and rehash what’s already out there. The printed instructions from Homebrew worked well enough, and they have a helpful Youtube video for those of a more visual bend. I used both, and found the video a little lacking toward the end in terms of getting the cheese to the shiny, smooth, elastic ball it is supposed to become. At first I worried my analog thermometer had been too inaccurate during the curdling phase. My ball of curds remained crumbly and wet for some time until I figured out getting the whey completely drained helped, as well as making sure the curds reached a hot enough temperature to become elastic during the microwaving phase. Basically, when it was almost past my ability to stand the temperature while hand-folding the ball (about 140 degrees), the curds became elastic and the cheese was finished.

I ate some immediately, while warm. It was chewy, a little salty, and just a touch on the grainy side. But the graininess didn’t detract, and the warmer the cheese, the less grainy it feels in the mouth. With the rest of the cheese, I followed a suggestion to throw it in an icewater bath to help it maintain a smooth consistency. (This is a theme that seems to repeat itself in home cheese-making – rapid cooling.)

While straining the whey was tedious, I had already learned it was important to save it. It contains enough solids to make more cheeses – ricotta and a peculiar Norwegian cheese called mysost.

Returning it to the stove, I brought it back to a boil. Temperature and timing here are not all that critical. After boiling, I let it cool to 140 degrees and then used a metal coffee filter to strain the solids from the whey. The resulting solids are ricotta. Simple!

The third cheese, mysost, takes more work. Mainly, it takes about 5 hours to boil down (over medium heat) the gallon of whey into a mixture with a fudge-like consistency. Being vigilant about not scalding the contents towards the end is especially crucial, as is some vigorous mixer action before the mixture cools too much. Again, rapid cooling helps this cheese remain smooth, too.

But the resulting cheese is like nothing I’ve had. Pale orangish-yellow, salty with a strong sweet-sour overtone, and slightly chalky. I had cooled it rapidly in a cold bowl I had buttered, and the cheese became a solid block I was unable to carve out. 30 seconds in the microwave made it spreadable, but I don’t know if it will remain so at room temperature yet. It would be good spread on some sort of unsalted or lightly-salted cracker or a crusty bread. Jury is out on this one, though I’m sure some would love it.

But three distinctly different cheeses, all from one common gallon of milk. That alone impresses me. All said and done, I got 12 ounces of mozzarella, 1 ounce of ricotta, and perhaps 4-5 ounces of mysost.

cheese, mozzarella, mysost, ricotta

May 12th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

This week I got the chance to attend a private tour of the properties that comprise the 2011 Travis County Master Gardener’s Association Inside Austin Gardens tour. Given that I’m unemployed, the weekday-date of this preview tour wasn’t as daunting to me. All in the name of professional development, networking and inspiration, right?

Jenna and I went on this tour in 2009, and I still borrow ideas from the gardens from that year (Cheryl Goveia’s garden of art and whimsy being the stand-out property for me). So, I wasn’t going to attend this year’s tour on the actual date (Saturday, May 14), but the private tour afforded me a chance to experience the tour without toting the tot (who, recently, has made this type of hopscotch travel difficult.)

The theme of the tour is water-wise gardening: increasing rainwater infiltration, rainwater catchment, xeric plantings, etc. I can say some wonderful things about all of the properties with relation to that and other aspects of gardening. Each had significant strengths, and a wealth of stealable-ideas. I loved Rebecca’s tenacity at transforming her yard one small bed at a time to the point she no longer has grass. I appreciated the sheer lushness of Sue’s garden, and the tip about “cemetery rock”. And Sheryl’s garden was an oasis of low-water ideas, even with its lush vegetable production areas. Oh, and did I mention her enviable water collection systems? Yeah.

But I definitely wanted to focus this entry on Link Davidson‘s creations. (Oh, and if you missed this energetic self-described ox of a designer, catch him on CTG from this past week. (And if you watch his interview, stay a little longer in the program for a few photos of mine CTG used.)

Technically, the property on the tour is Wendy’s, and was created with her interests and aesthetics in mind. It sits next door to Link’s property, and he has fused the two landscapes into one by continuing certain elements between the two. A dry creek bed reminiscent of Wendy’s love of the Barton Creek Greenbelt, for example. This feature rolls gently downhill from Link’s property before heading south through Wendy’s. Naturally it ties the two together visually, but serves as a channel for run-off and rainwater infiltration for the surrounding plantings.

Another feature, a cut concrete path, conjures up Wendy’s desire that as much material be reclaimed and reused as possible. To that end, Link cut the formerly-straight sidewalk into rectangles and squares using a concrete saw, and then moved the pieces into a curvy stepping-stone arrangement with generous space between for granite gravel. Additional pieces he tipped on their sides and used for varying vertical interest.

Steel compressor tanks and rusted, bent metal edging have been used to add other sculptural elements to the space. Many of these things were scavenged on Austin’s bulky trash day, and turned into pure art. As Link said, if he can’t get it out of the trash, it had better be on clearance at Target or Home Depot.

And while it’s probably not kosher of me to say too much about HIS yard, which we also toured, I’ll post a few photos of his space on my Flickr account to give you an idea of the depth of this man’s creativity. Needless to say, I was blown away at the artistry and resourcefulness at creating highly-inspiring spaces on a budget. I’m sure in some weak-kneed moment I heard myself tell him we were kindred spirits.

The What, When and Where:
Inside Austin Gardens Tour
Water-Wise Gardening
Saturday, May 14, 2011
9am – 4pm
www.tcmastergardeners.org/what/gardentour.html
$5 per garden, or $10 for all

May 7th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

It may be a little late for such things, so we’ll see. Planted okra and jalapeño transplants this week, as well as bush and vine green bean seeds, sweet corn seed, and summer squash seed. The bush beans are already past seed-leaf stage, while the other stuff seems to be biding its time. In a year with actual rainfall, the lateness might not matter much. But I think the drought may impact my success. We’ll see.

However, to help with all this, I am still letting tap water outgas its chlorine, and I have used parts of a bag of Revitalizer Compost from The Natural Gardener to make two 5-gallon buckets of compost tea. I was inspired to do this because I had potted a passionvine cutting directly in Revitalizer. Every time I went to water the sprout, the water in the saucer below was a rich dark-chocolate color. I could hear my other plants begging for it.

Today I need to strain that into storage jugs so it doesn’t become a haven for the blood squad. Though, a b. thuringiensis dunk would probably help that, and not hurt the compost tea.

A limitation I ran into this year is not having enough open planting space to plant certain crops on time. Basically, I’d love to have the corn where the potatoes are, but the potatoes have yet to vacate the space (but they are seeming close to digging time). The strawberry bed would make a good spot for squash, but they still seem happy…even if my total berry output this year could be measured in the single ounces column.

Notable Arrivals
I’m reading reports of ripe tomatoes all over the Central Texas blogosphere, and my garden is not one to be out-performed in this regard. So far I’ve picked several handfuls of a small cherry tomato (don’t know the variety, but they are about the size of small marbles and VERY sweet.) I’ve also plucked the first two Viva Italias. Basically very much like Romas, these are a paste tomato that should be good for sauces and cooking. Verdict on taste is not in (I had a lot of tasteless tomatoes last year), but they are gorgeous, unblemished and heavy.

Also, we had one blackberry. Jenna reported it to be delicious. She got it since she requested the blackberry brambles back in January. We may get one more ripe berry. This is only notable since one shouldn’t actually get berries on first-year brambles. Berries develop on last-year’s canes.

What Else?
I was supposed to be going to the Wildflower Center’s Gardens on Tour today, but the boy is still sick, and would probably be pretty fussy. Momma and boy are sleeping right now, so plans are up in the air.

beans, compost tea, corn, okra, squash, vegetables