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

May 7th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I won a pair of passes to the Wildflower Center’s Gardens on Tour this weekend (courtesy of the Statesman’s Renee Studebaker at Renee’s Roots, so we’ll be loading up the child and hoping he doesn’t want to stay for 14 hours at each place we visit.

All of the gardens appear to be professionally designed and installed, and I sometimes feel these don’t necessarily incorporate the soul of an inspired homeowner/gardener. But they WILL be pretty, and a testament to what you can do with a lot of resources. And hopefully a showcase for native plants, always a plus.

From the official description:

Last year’s drought and hard freezes put plants to the test. These gardens demonstrate how our natives can beautify a space, no matter the rigors of the region. Moreover, wildflower gardens are highly sustainable. They are conservative in water use, don’t need excessive chemicals to make them thrive and are easy to maintain.

May 5th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

For some time I’ve lamented that I never manage that seemingly perfect mix of compost heap ingredients that yields a little backyard furnace of thermophilic microorganisms, the one that keeps me from spreading weed seeds all over the yard (I’m damn tired of Arizona ash, sunflower and frostweed sprouts everywhere). I vowed to do better with composting this year, but wasn’t really doing anything systematically better to get there.

A week ago, however, I went to bury some kitchen scraps in the pile and flipped over a layer of organic detritus and discovered… heat!

The temperature needs to be a little higher… 135-160 degrees is the optimal temperature to destroy seeds and pathogens (not that I suspect THOSE are a problem… yet). Could be I need to get more air or moisture – or less – into the mixture.

But I think I stumbled into the right mixture of “green” to “brown” materials for the compost heap quite on accident. And a way to reproduce it in a somewhat reliable way. Last week when I mowed the grass for the first time this season, I had a bag of scavenged mixed oak leaves and grass from another yard I was mowing near. The bottom of the bag had rotted out, and when I went to move it, the leaf mixture spewed forth. Did I bother to rake it up? No. I had my gas-powered vacuum cleaner already running, so I kicked the leaves around and mowed them up. Since it’s a mulching mower and I bag the clippings, I had inadvertently created a really good mixture for the compost heap, probably achieving close to the 30:1 ratio of carboniferous to nitrogenous materials.

But it has been exceptionally dry here, too.

So, to help with that, I’ve been allowing tap water to sit in white plastic jugs. This allows the city-provided chlorine to outgas and prevents it from damaging the microbial community in the compost heap. Every week I dump a 5-gallon jug into the heap to help keep it moist. I generally turn it (or at least give it a good prodding) on the same rough schedule so it maintains some oxygen.

Last night I checked the temperature again, and it had fallen to around 110?. I suspect a lot of the nitrogen-bearing grass has been used up. It’s getting close to time to mow again, so I’m definitely going to toss in more leaves as I do.

And if that doesn’t work, I might resort to peeing in my compost pile.

carbon, compost, nitrogen

April 25th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Great ideas for a raised bed that costs $10 in wood. Cedar, to be precise.

Not sure I’d bother with the glue, though.

Raised cedar beds

April 19th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I robbed a couple potatoes from my still-growing forest of potato plants. I hand-dug below a red pontiac plant and a kennebec plant, and came up with a pair of pretty tubers. Both of these would be considered “new potatoes” since they are the earliest from the crop.

The small one was from a smaller plant I pulled a few days ago. The larger red pontiac’s skin is torn from me trying to wrest it from the ground. Maybe I need to cut my fingernails.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the red pontiac had a couple sizable scab lesions.

Potato scab is lesions on potatoes caused by the presence of a bacterium in the soil, Streptomyces scabies. It causes various forms of lesion, either pits or raised welts, seemingly dependent on the growing conditions and variety of potato. It isn’t harmful to humans, but it does render the otherwise pretty potato unsightly. In extreme cases the lesions take on a corky, pithy form that is unappealing to eat.

I knew my soil conditions might be right for scab when I planted the seed potato slips, but I had done some work to try and condition my alkaline soil to help ward off the pathogen. The bacteria doesn’t do well in soils with a pH below 5.2, so boosting the acidity of the soil with compost is something growers often do. (Compost can raise soil acidity). However, I’ve seen warnings that using manure-based composts might aggravate the condition. I used Natural Gardener turkey compost to help acidify my soil some.

For next year I may have my soil tested professionally and amend it accordingly with something more like coffee grounds or another acidic agent that doesn’t contain manure compost. Another factor seems to be to maintain consistently-high soil moisture. This allows other non-harmful soil bacteria to out-compete s. scabies.

Whatever the case, my two potatoes will be breakfast tomorrow. The scab on the red pontiac is easily cut off. I plan to enjoy thinly-sliced potatoes sautéed in olive oil with minced garlic and maybe a bit of chopped garden onion.

bacteria, kennebec, pathogen, potaotes, red pontiac, scab, Streptomyces scabies

April 11th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

Little Mr. is positively addicted to the outdoors. Never fussy out there, and positively flips out when we bring him indoors.

So here he is in his element this evening:

lukas

April 10th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

I meant to post sooner this past week, but life shot me a sneaky-fast curveball and I lost my job Tuesday. Does this work for me financially? In the short-term, not exactly. Too much uncertainty. Is it the best thing for me in a thousand other ways? Totally.

But maybe I’ll talk about that in another post.

I took a lot of photos on one of my new days “off” because it was overcast and the light was diffuse. They document my garden’s progress pretty well. I had another ulterior motive for these photos, but… again. Another post.

Onions:
Nearly all of my onions are out of the ground, only a handful are still in place. The stalks haven’t fallen, and the bulbs aren’t very big, so I’m optimistic they’ll still mature a little more.

Strawberries:
I get 1 – 2 berries a day, and they are delicious. But the quantity isn’t very useful. I had five plants this year, two of which aren’t producing because the pill bugs attacked them too strongly in the beginning, and they are now just recovering. Next year I want to plant about 15 plants and dedicate one whole bed to berries.

Broccoli:
So far, one head out of two plants. Both plants were the same size, but only one produced anything. I’m not sure why. I am trying to figure this out, and whether I should whack the non-productive plant or wait. The good head went in an all-garden stir-fry tonight (along with onions, green beans, carrots and snow peas), and it was all delicious.

Lettuce:
Next year, less lettuce. More butterhead. The red sails… gets too flobby in the heat, and develops nasty spines? hairs? along the leaf axis. But it sure is pretty.

Potatoes:
The potato patch looks amazing. I catch a leaf-footed bug occasionally out there, but otherwise the plants look lush and healthy. I certainly hope there are lush things happening below ground, too.

Flowering things:
Gulf Coast penstemon

Texas primrose

Other Things:
My friend Phoebe gave me some of the pink evening primrose I have been seeking. I’m hoping I didn’t wait too long to get it in the ground, and that it snaps back. Otherwise, it looks pretty pitiful. Hmm.

Been seeing Texas spiny lizards multiple times a day in the yard. I love these critters. I’m not sure why. I have yet to get a good current photo of one, but here’s me harassing one somewhere I shouldn’t have been harassing one. (Though I will assure any of my City of Austin Wildland friends who might be reading, this was NOT one of their lizards!)