Innholdsfortegnelse for December - January 2017 i MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Until recently, organic seed growers encountered an educational gap when seeking mentors and comprehensive courses covering both theoretical and practical applications related to seed. To fill that need, the nonprofit Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) teamed up with the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA) to create a national internship program, which launched in 2015. As part of the program, organizers developed an extensive course on growing organic seed. The online portions of the six-month course are also available free of charge to folks outside the internship program. This includes monthly webinars and reading lists, as well as discussion forums for participants to hash out all things seed-related. Each webinar covers a new area of organic seed production, such as variety trials and seed selection, diseases and pests, harvesting how-to and…

The only certainty about the future is that we can’t predict it. We don’t know when there will be another major storm, earthquake, drought, or terrorist event. With the effects of a changing climate becoming more apparent, interest in resilience is growing rapidly — particularly in coastal areas that will be affected most by sea level changes and storm surges. Homesteaders who value independence and self-sufficiency are making their homes and properties more resilient. So what is resilience? The Resilient Design Institute (www.ResilientDesign.org) defines resilience as “the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of stress or disturbance.” In part, this means that resilience is about being prepared for climate change, though the goal of resilience should appeal even to…

My grandmother taught me that when making mashed potatoes, you should cook one potato per person and one more “for the pot” — but I usually add more. Sometimes when I see potatoes starting to sprout in the bin, I’ll go ahead and cook those up and mash them. Waste not, want not; potatoes make good bread. Any leftovers go into baggies, approximately 1 cup into each, and I tuck these into zip-close bags. The night before I plan to bake, I get out as many baggies of mashed potatoes as the number of batches of bread I intend to bake. By morning, they’ll be at room temperature. Yield: 2 loaves in standard 9-by-5-inch pans. Directions: Set up a mixer with a dough hook. Put 4 cups of the flour,…

Soap-makers love to tell the story of how ancient Romans first “discovered” soap by burning animal sacrifices on Mount Sapo, and how the creeks at the bottom of that mythological mountain were the best places to do laundry. They’ll tell you that the water, ash, and animal fat on those sites accidentally created the soap that filled the creeks. The reality is that the Romans didn’t actually make soap. They traded for it with the Celts, who dominated the market because of their access to abundant limestone and seashells, from which they produced slacked lime to make a caustic soda lye (sodium hydroxide). After years of professionally making all-natural goat’s milk soaps to sell at our local farmers market, I decided to develop a self-sufficient soap-making process based on ancient…

Several years ago, I was feeling frustrated. “There are so many problems,” I said to myself, “and there’s so much suffering in the world.” Worst of all, I felt that there was nothing I could do about it. Do you know that feeling? Even though I lived an environmentally conscientious life and donated money to worthy causes, I needed to take my own two hands and actually do something tactile to make a difference, no matter how small. A Seed Is Planted It was looking at my hands (well, the dirt on them, anyway) that spurred this thought: I know quite a bit about gardening — so why don’t I help start a garden in which people could grow food to give away? What could be a more tangible way…

Tucked under power lines at the base of the South Mountains in sprawling Phoenix, a new sustainable business is breaking down — in a good way. Recycled City, a small but growing company, uses food waste to feed people instead of feeding landfills. At Recycled City, pretty much everything is recovered, recycled, and regenerated. Food waste is collected and composted, that compost is used to nourish crops, and those crops go to customers whose food waste is collected and composted … and so on, in a satisfying unbroken cycle. What sets Recycled City apart from other composting companies is that it directly manages every part of the process — collecting, composting, growing, and more. “Recycled City has a huge competitive advantage because we’re integrating everything,” explains owner J. D. Hill.…

One of the great joys I have in gardening is preserving herbs for use during restful winters. At the top of my must-have list are mint and chamomile for morning tea. My cats’ favorite is catnip, which I use to create “mousie” toys. This is a fun, quick, and easy project to do with children. I heartily recommend it as a way for them to create something for their own cats or as gifts for others. Warning: Don’t do this with your cats nearby! You may have to track down stolen mousie parts to complete the project. I’m sharing the dimensions for two sizes of mousie. The larger size may be easier for children to make. My cats will play with both sizes, but prefer the smaller version. To make…

“I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, and I’ve learned that you can ‘have it all’ at any age.” EDITORS’ PICK Archive Gold I’m currently reading the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Archive on DVD for a second time. I took so much away from my first perusal, but wanted to go over it again in case I’d missed something. I’m enjoying some of the articles so much that I wanted to suggest the Archive to your readers who haven’t yet purchased this gold mine. Some of the contributors are extremely entertaining. I’ve just read Sharon Kruse’s “Living the Homesteading Life” (September/October 1976) and it left me laughing so much that I had to hold my stomach! Kruse writes of her experience in the Ozarks and describes in great detail the pros…

Having access to stored root vegetables gives a sense of comfort to the gardener-cook. There they are, always ready to bulk up a meal with their earthy flavors. But sometimes we long for the wide variety the garden yielded in summer, and then it’s time to try some new storage crops that are popular in cooking but not often grown at home. How about planting a bed of sweet potatoes? And, for a gourmet treat, a row of shallots? Both are easy to grow and easy to keep, since neither requires (or does well in) the moist cold of a root cellar. They even pair well in cooking — one luxuriously sweet and the other pungent, with a subtle flavor all its own. Sustaining Sweet Potatoes Sweet potatoes are one…

Sarah Sailer never thought her life would look like this. “My neighbors have seen some interesting things,” she says, such as Sarah climbing on her roof in a full bee suit to check the hive and then biking down the street wearing the bee helmet and gloves, trailed by 20 college students. She’s been seen crossing streets carrying cabbages in both arms and transporting ducks. Sarah, her husband, Jeremiah, and their four daughters began growing their own food as a solution to the family’s health concerns and the cost of organic vegetables — and they achieved a lot at their 1⁄5-acre suburban home in Loveland, Colorado. In fact, they were among Mother’s 2014 Homesteaders of the Year. Eventually, though, they began to run out of space and dreamed of expanding,…

European breads are frequently made with an overnight starter, called a poolish or biga. This way of developing dough — which I learned from Peter Reinhart, of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice — has helped me to quickly put together some delicious, full-flavored sandwich breads. Watch a video on how to stretch and fold the starter at http://goo.gl/zH46BA. Directions: You can use a mixer with a dough hook, or it’s easy enough to stir this up by hand — just approximate the mixer directions. Whichever you choose, begin by putting the flour into a good-sized bowl, tall rather than wide (your mixer bowl will work well). Put the salt on one side of the bowl and the yeast on the other, and then stir together. Make a little well, then pour…

The French have two distinct bread traditions. One is of breads that are crusty, crunchy, and limited to four ingredients: flour, leavening, salt, and water. They’re the sexy, trendy breads of today. When the leavening is sourdough rather than yeast, the resulting loaves are those featured in “artisan” bakeries and those that inspire many of us to bake our own bread at home. For several hundred years, when English speakers said “French bread,” we didn’t think of the golden, roughtextured breads we so love today. And we never thought of sourdough! Sour was a taste we didn’t like in bread. Cookbooks in the 19th century advised adding soda to neutralize any starter or bread dough that had even a hint of sourness. Historically, the breads we emulated in our bakeries…

First, the bad news: We’ve lost millions of tons of soil from croplands in the United States annually for the past 20 years due to water and wind erosion. The rate of erosion skyrockets the more soil is cultivated and left bare. Heavy tillage also destroys the soil structure and life-forms that nourish plants, meaning more fertilizer and amendments are needed later. The good news? You can help turn around these problems by practicing no-till or low-till techniques on your own land. No-till methods can be adapted to any size of operation — backyard gardens, small market gardens, multi-acre farms, and more. The technique involves creating a deep mulch, and then planting a crop through the mulch. No-till in conjunction with cover crops can reduce erosion, boost soil nutrients and…

Only 30 years ago an off-grid homestead’s photovoltaic (PV) system was likely to consist of two 35-watt modules and one or two car batteries. Such a system had no inverter, as reliable inverters were still years away. The typical 12-volt system powered little more than a few low-voltage lights, a car stereo, and a few 12-volt products developed for early RVs. But for power pioneers, this kind of system was heaven-sent — a wonderful alternative to kerosene lamps and engine-powered generators. The batteries used in early PV systems weren’t designed for the deep discharges common in home use, so they often failed to hold charge after only a year or two. As a result, early deep-cycle batteries for homestead systems were adapted from other uses. The most common batteries were…

We’re hobbyists, but we own both wood-burning and coal-burning forges on our homestead. We started by building a coalburning forge out of a brake drum to begin blacksmithing, and we now use a commercially built wood-burning forge. We say “commercially built,” but really it’s handmade by a small homeschooling, farming family in Oregon (www.WhitloxHomestead.com). Personally, we enjoy using the wood-burning forge much more for a number of reasons, although coal has benefits as well. Coal and propane are the most typical fuels used in forges. On the East Coast, coal is readily available and therefore more affordable than on the West Coast. Coal burns more efficiently and hotter than wood. Because of its efficiency, the volume of coal needed is substantially less, too. In an hour, you’ll burn through approximately…

SHOW US  Share your unique perspective with our community by submitting photos of inviting gardens, nutritious foods, wild animals, and more to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Photo Group on Flickr (www.Flickr.com/Groups/MotherEarthNewsPhotos/Pool). We’ll feature our favorites here and online!…

Each year, we salute the resourcefulness, commitment, and gumption of remarkable homesteading families with our Homesteaders of the Year awards. Megan and Jonathan Leiss, one of three winning families for 2016, have set an inspiring example of the challenges and rewards of a self-reliant life. From 12 acres in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina, this couple sells cut flowers through their business, Spring Forth Farm (www.SpringForthFarmNC.com). Megan and Jonathan have lived in a 7-by-11-foot remodeled camper since purchasing their property in 2013, which has allowed them to build their solar home slowly without a mortgage — a process that has been a source of experimentation, education, and community. They’ve worked to reclaim and rebuild soil that grew tobacco for at least a century, and their primary farm crop is flowers. In…

My grandparents and great-grandparents knew the basics of how to store root vegetables, of how to make their own bread, and probably, how to peel chicken feet. But me? We’ve been raising chickens since our firstborn was tiny. After we decided to try to grow as much food as possible, we began to see the chickens as more than a hobby. We wanted them to put to use in every way. Learning how to butcher our own chickens was another way to value these animals. We’d spent a couple of years learning to butcher, process, and prepare our own chickens and rabbits we’d raised. It felt good knowing we weren’t wasting anything. But were we? We’re believers in homemade bone broth and use our vegetable scraps and leftover bones regularly.…

This is the absolute best bread for a PB&J sandwich! You can substitute a cup of whole wheat for 1 cup of the white bread flour to achieve a deeper flavor. As for the oats, you can use “quick-cooking” oats (never “instant”) if that’s what you have, but rolled or “oldfashioned” oats lend a chewier, heartier texture. Directions: Set up a mixer with a dough hook. Put 4 cups of the flour in the mixer bowl, with the salt on one side of the bowl and the yeast on the other, and give it a quick stir. If you can get scalding-hot water from the tap, use that. If not, heat the water to not more than 115 degrees Fahrenheit. In a measuring glass, stir together the water and milk.…

In 1708, when this recipe was published, eggs were backyard eggs, milk was raw, and butter was freshly churned. The white flour was slightly less white than ours today, but not by enough to matter. I have backyard chickens that lay eggs with such rich, dark yolks that when I serve this bread, friends sometimes ask, “Why is this bread so yellow?” To be honest, I have only just started using the sugar and full complement of salt. I’m loving it! I hope you’ll find a new appreciation for yeasted, lightly enriched breads and for the American loaf bread tradition. Yield: 1 loaf. Directions: In a bowl, add flour and optional salt, mix, and set aside. In another bowl, break eggs, add optional sugar, then mix and set aside. In…

Any cover crop that’s an annual or winter annual can work in a no-till or low-till system, says Jeff Moyer of Rodale Institute. “The trick is to look at your crop rotation, and figure out where there are windows of opportunity to put in cover crops, or how to rearrange your rotation to plant cover crops. Then, pick the plant that best suits your soil, environment, and rotation,” he says. Moyer recommends these cover crops. • Small grains: wheat, rye, oats, triticale, barley, and buckwheat• Non-perennial legumes: hairy vetch, Austrian winter peas, field peas, forage soybeans, and crimson clover or any annual clover You should also consider these variables before deciding on a cover crop. • How long do you want your cover-crop mulch to last? Grasses, such as cereal…

Rabbit Tractor I thought it’d be great to have a tractor for raising meat rabbits, just like people do with their chickens. I started by gathering up recycled supplies that I’d been saving for this purpose and then got to work. 1 For the top and bottom, build two 30-by-72-inch frames out of 1-by-4s. I salvaged my lumber from some large shipping pallets. 2 Attach the two frames together with 1-by-4-inch boards cut 30 inches long to form a box frame. I also put support boards across the top and bottom to sturdy up the structure. (See photos, below.) 3 Cut some plywood to the cutting list specifications to form a box at what will be the wheel end of the rabbit tractor. This will create a safe place for…

homesteading & livestock ORGANIC NO-TILL FARMING This book offers a map to an organic farming system that limits tillage, reduces labor, and improves soil structure. Based on research by pioneering agriculturists, the text offers new technologies and tools based on sound biological principles, making it possible to reduce and even eliminate tillage. Field-tested over many seasons, these methods make cover crops into a source of fertility as well as a tool for weed management. #5924 $28.00 FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL Joel Salatin discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love. Salatin has many thoughts on what normal is and shares practical and philosophical ideas for changing our lives in small ways that have big…