Building an earth oven

What is this?  An earth oven.  What does that mean?  It's an oven made of clay which can attain heats of over 800 degrees.  It can also hold a hot temperature for a long time.  You can make pizza, bread, and anything else you would cook in a regular oven.  However with the really hot temp of 800 you can make traditional italian pizzas in 3-4 minutes.  With the clay and it's heat retention you can make superior breads.   These guys are making 4 minute pizzas and selling them for 7 bucks. 

There are all sorts of instructables on how to make one of these.  Here's how I did mine..

How to refine beeswax

Beeswax can come in many colors.  The above picture has 3 variations of wax color and one died brown with walnut hulls.  Would you like to know how to refine wax and make balms, candles, and salves?  ......

Black Walnut Processing

Black walnuts are delicious!  If you havn't tried them all you got to do is pick a couple up, 5 nuts would take you 30 seconds to dehusk and put in a bag to dry out.  There are also plenty of uses I don't have time for like adding to henna or fish poisons etc.  But here's how to eat and dye with them

Acorn processing

It's acorn season and you should take advantage of it!  To most people acorns are a decoration or a nusance.  But these seeds have 500 calories a cup and they taste good too. 

Saving Tomato Seed

My tomatoes this year were great!!  They taste so good and the timing was perfect from early to late.  Saving seed to grow your tomatoes is easier than you think.  It's also a great way to use leftovers that you have when you're done eating them.  So let's begin....

Raising Mealworms

 Raising mealworms is super easy.  It's a great idea if you have insect eating pets, bird feeders, or would like to start eating insects yourself.  I've read that insects can convert plant matter to protein 10 times more efficient than cattle.  They are very commonly eaten in other countries.

How to grow mushrooms under your porch

What is that growing there?  It's a couple of gourmet oyster mushrooms.  I remembered that I put them there when my son bear dropped a truck under the deck.  Here's how to grow them.

A no dig no weed garden!?

 So how do you turn this into ----------------------------- This?  With no weeds and less watering?

Thistle The artichoke you can grow in any zone

What's this?  A thistle you say!  You are wrong.  It's an Artichoke.  Yep that's what an Artichoke looks like in bloom.  Although I can't really grow good artichokes in zone 4, I can grow really good thistles and they taste the same!  Here's how to cook them.......

How to get honey from a hive

Fitzpatrick farm wildflower honey.  Its so delicious!!  How do I ever seperate the bees from the honeycomb?  You're about to find out.

Corn smut the truffle of the Aztec

Oh no, my corn is sick!!  Lucky for you its sick with Corn Smut, the gourmet delecacy of the Aztecs.  Check out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_smut  Corn smut sells for more than corn  in Mexico and is found in stores, as in restaraunts, and even sold in cans it so loved and enjoyed.  Oh how can you get some of this to grow on your corn you say?  Whell....

How to make Salsa and Guacamole from your garden

Ok so first you get some ingredients.  I've got an avacado, onion, cilantro, lime, tomatoe, and basil.  For salsa you just need the onion, lime, tomatoe, cilantro and a dash of salt but you can put whatever.  Certainly for heat you can put a jalipeno or habenero, but I've got a nursing wife and a two year old so this is going to be mild salsa.

How to Make Rootbeer

First let me say that I do have an affinity for slightly dangerous things and although this does not look dangerous, it can be if you forget about it.  To carbonate your rootbeer in this method you will be using live yeast and they will continue to produce carbon dioxide as long as you let them  This will make your container explode if you let it sit too long.  Darn that electronegetive force of chemical bonds and the way it accumulates in chemical reactions!!

Here is the ingredient list.  I don't measure any more, but you can use your mouth, tongue, and olfactury bulb to taste to make sure it's good.  (isn't that what they were made for anyway?  I think it's good to learn to use them)

Water
Sugar
spices (see pic below)
Yeast ( I am using active dry yeast)

So here are my spices.  From left to right Iv'e got sasparilla, sasafrass, cinnimon, licorice root, star anise, and sliced ginger in the middle.

Organic Pest control

Hey everyone.  For my first blog I would like to talk about some of the organic pesticides that I use in my gardens.  I like to keep things bee friendly. But I want something that really works right?  I am personally not a fan of hippie sunblock or bug-spray if you know what I mean.  I put on the deet damn it, and I love that spray on sunblock.  The following stuff to my experience has worked for me.  I am definitely not going to put chemicals on stuff that I feed to Bear and Scout (my two kids).

So first of is Bt.  There are several strains of this bacteria and they kick a moth's butt and are not toxic to humans.  Once I had this tomato horn worm that I was growing fat because I was going to try to eat it.  Bear and some of his friends put it in a cage and I was feeding it non Bt tomatoes.  Well Gretchen decided that a partially sprayed couple leafs wouldn't hurt, but the next day that dude was dead.  I had one of those kids back over last week and he was like where's that horn worm in the cage? 

Here's a moth larva on my asparagus!