Three Herb-y Projects, an interesting bee experience, and more Urban Farm Tour information

I mentioned over the weekend that having the herb spiral in the garden is really a boon for my cooking, and today I made two dishes that really highlighted fresh herbs. But first, a project: I made  'Thieves Vinegar." I caught a little bit of a P. Allen Smith program on PBS, where he was visiting a farm that still does things as they would in colonial times. They used this vinegar for cleaning everything - wood included. I thought I'd make some and use it to clean the kitchen and bathroom, and maybe even our wood furniture.

Here's how you make it: Fill a mason jar with any herb that smells good to you. I used lavender, mint, and sorrel - all smell delicious (the sorrel smells of lemon), and all are abundant in my garden.





Really pack the herbs in the jar.

Then, add distilled white vinegar. On the program they said they prefer this kind of vinegar but that you can use apple cider vinegar as well. Fill the jar to the top, completely covering the herbs, and screw on the cap tightly.




Place the jar in the sun, protected from rain (if you get rain where you live, lucky you.).

In the program, they put it everything in a crock (like you'd use for sauerkraut), put a weight on top, then covered with cloth tied on with twine. But they said in modern days a mason jar is just fine! So that's what I've done.

After two weeks, the mixture should be ready to decant into a spray bottle and used to clean your house! I can't wait to try it, and I'll let you know how it works.

This is a project I could never do without my herb garden, because the cost of buying this quantity of herbs would be quite prohibitive.

For dinner tonight, I used another great quantity of fresh herbs. First, I made fresh foccacia from a recipe I also saw on the same P. Allen Smith show. (I don't usually watch his show, because he doesn't garden like I do - first of all, he's on the East coast so the plant choices don't translate, and also I don't like his style, generally. However this particular episode turned out to be a winner!)

Foccacia

 Pour one cup of warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkle one tablespoon of yeast on top of the water. Sprinkle in two tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 cup all-purpose flour. Mix well and let sit five minutes.
Then add 3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, one teaspoon salt, one tablespoon olive oil, and three tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs. I used rosemary, sage, thyme, and marjoram. Mix thoroughly and knead for five minutes on a floured board. Put back in the bowl, cover with two teaspoons of olive oil, and a moist cloth. Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.



(A quick aside: I've never kneaded anything by hand - I've always used the bread attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer. Kneading this by hand was actually a great thing to do. Five minutes isn't that long, but you start to realize how strong women used to be, and how they had to do this nearly every day, and often for longer than five minutes. You begin to feel pretty badass. Try it and see!)

Scatter two tablespoons of cornmeal on the bottom of a baking pan. (I used a rectangular pan that I often use for brownies.) Press dough into the pan, stretching it out into a rough rectangle. Sprinkle on sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes. It smells heavenly while it's baking and looks lovely when done.


I served this with a mix of chopped tomatoes (not in season, from Mexico, horrors!), fresh mozzarella, a little basil (also not in season!), salt, pepper, and olive oil.

To go with it, I found a recipe for herbed pork tenderloin from The Kitchn. Basically you make a sort of pesto to rub on the pork.

Grilled Herbed Pork Tenderloin

 In a food processor, combine 1/2 cup fine cornmeal, five minced cloves of garlic, one cup of minced parsley, five minced springs of thyme, two minced sprigs of rosemary, and 1/4 cup minced sage. Pulse till mixed.


While food processor is running, add two tablespoons of olive oil. Rub this paste over two pork tenderloins, which you've already salted and peppered. Grill.



We enjoyed these dishes! The bread was soft and savory and delicious with the tomato mixture; pork tenderloin is generally not my favorite cut of meat, but I simply loved this preparation - the cornmeal/herb mixture gave the meat a lovely crust, and it was so yummy. The best part is that there are leftovers for lunch tomorrow! I will definitely make both these dishes again.

Now for the interesting bee experience. This morning I was headed out to the garden early to pick kale, and I noticed a scrub jay by the hive. As I approached, he flew to the top of the train shed, and in his beak was a dead bee! He must have picked it up from the bee graveyard at the foot of the hive. I didn't know jays would eat dead bees! That was pretty neat.

I opened the hive again today to check the comb. The good news is that the bees are making comb very quickly. The bad news is that I had to remove more skewed comb. I was so frustrated with this that I moved bars around, hoping that they'll build on the ones I moved to the front of the hive now and leave the others for later. I imagine the queen is laying brood on the very first bar, which is beautifully straight, but she'll need to lay on all the other bars as well, and I don't want to have to remove comb that has eggs or larvae in it. As it is, I feel terrible, because it's full of nectar and pollen that the bees have painstakingly collected.

Finally, the Urban Farm Tour tickets are on sale! We very much hope to see you at our farm, June 6. Here are all the relevant links:

LINKS

New Raised Beds, plus news about the Urban Farm Tour

Last November, if you recall, we sheet mulched the North Garden in preparation for this week. The area had been grass and had housed first a play structure, and then a trampoline. About two months after we laid down the sheet mulch, we built the chicken coop. This week we finally began the raised beds in this area of the garden.

The first step is to stake out where you want the beds to go, which Tom did with 2"x2" redwood stakes and some string. After those are in place, it's important to rake the wood chips out of the beds. I didn't do this last year in the South Garden, and we had serious nitrogen issues, or more precisely, lack-of-nitrogen issues. When soil mixes with wood chips or mulch, the nitrogen in the soil immediately goes to work breaking down the mulch, and that work of decomposition ties up all the available nitrogen, leaving none for your seedlings. So learn from my mistake! Rake out the wood chips before you build the beds and fill with soil.

Staked 'n raked

The next step is to purchase lumber, either redwood or cedar, to build your raised beds. Tom likes redwood, and he buys 1'x8' boards. These can be made into either 4x4 beds or 4x8 beds quite easily, with few cuts. He then puts them together with deck screws. This project takes about a day, depending how many beds you're making.




The lumber and the soil are the priciest part of this project. But the beds will last for many, many years, and I'll never have to replace the soil in them - just amend with manure and compost and occasionally top off.

As Tom was working on the beds, I noticed some stubborn Bermuda grass growing in the dirt under the mulch. I hate this stuff. It spreads so incredibly easily and is so difficult to kill. So I spread a little bit of cardboard in the bottom of the beds to help smother it.

The next step is dirt! It takes more dirt than you think to fill raised beds. I ordered 5 cubic yards, which will take care of the new beds, and anything left over will top off the six beds in the South Garden. I ordered it from American Soil in Richmond. I decided to try their special blend called "Local Hero Veggie Mix," which is a mix of sandy loam, green waste compost, rice hulls, chicken manure, grape compost, fir bark, and cocoa bean hulls.  

It smells so good and is steaming and cooking in there! Living soil, for sure.
The dirt was delivered at 8:30 this morning, so now you know what the day ahead holds for me. 

We've had some fun this week, too. The kids and I went with my folks to the de Young art museum in San Francisco, where we got to see some Impressionist art from the Scottish National Galleries. My favorite piece was a Cezanne, called "The Big Trees." I learned an awful lot about painting from looking at this.


The kids' friends have all been traveling on their breaks, but some were finally back in town, and a few stayed for dinner last night. Dinner outside with friends and a fire in the fire pit - this says 'summer' to me, for sure. I know we're pushing that envelope, but still... it was all I could do not to break out the s'mores.


The Institute of Urban Homesteading has just announced the Urban Farm Tours for this summer, in their spring newsletter. Here is a description of the Walnut Creek/Concord tour: 

Walnut Creek & Concord June 6 9am-3pm
Featured Sites
How It WorksYour ticket includes 3 urban farm tour sites and one special interest site (choose at ticket purchase), plus morning hospitality and a simple homegrown lunch.
Come to the staging area in the morning topick up your itinerary, come back for lunch f you desire.
General Admission $40, kids $25,
Friends of the Farm Tour Ticket $60 (includes a gift of farm fresh egg or honey from our farmers)
Patron of the Farm $80 farm fresh eggs or honey plus Ruby Blume's Book, Eveyday Cheesemaking
Tickets on sale April 15

And here is how our farm is described!

Poppy Corners 
Hosts: Elizabeth & Tom Boegel
Lot: 7,000 sq ft
Used for agriculture: 4,000 sq ft
Poppy Corners is a testament to what one suburban family can accomplish while raising a couple kids and going to work full time. This thriving hobby farm resides in a tidy neighborhood of overwatered lawns. Most of the grass has been replaced with 14 vegetable beds which produce year-round. There are fruit trees, bushes, vines, and canes interspersed within a perennial garden, as well as vegetable patches tucked in between the flowers. Whatever land is left is devoted to native and drought-tolerant plants and flowers for pollinators. The Poppy Corners farmers raise bees and chickens. They build their own structures wherever possible and tend the garden and critters themselves. They continue to research and apply new ways to use less water in the hot and dry summers, and to catch water in the winter. Diverse farming methods are employed from permaculture principles to square foot gardening. Come enjoy research in process! 

We are really excited and hope you will attend and support this effort, if you are anywhere near the area!