We recently purchased the soil cube tool from Deeply Rooted Organics. We have been starting seedlings indoors using Jiffy pots and pellets. This technique has worked fairly well for us but it has become more and more expensive each year as we have begun to start more and more vegetables, herbs, and flowers. After hearing about the soil cube tool on an episode of The Survival Podcast we decided that we would try it out.
[Soil cube tool with wooden tong]
I used the methods described in the article A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden: Homemade Organic Fertilizer for a couple of years to organically fertilize our newly constructed vegetable garden. The article was published in Mother Earth News in the June/July 2006 edition and written by Steve Solomon. By using the recipe for this organic fertilizer I obtained very good yields and our vegetables were very healthy. I think this is a very good alternative to chemical fertilizers and a great technique for a new garden to give it an initial boost, but I would like to offer some sustainable soil management practices for soil building in the home garden that should eventually eliminate or greatly reduce having to add any fertilizer.
[Photo Credit, Soil by John!!! under Creative Commons License]
So where do you fall on the eco scale? Do you consider yourself an environmentalist or are you just and eco poser? Paul Wheaton’s recent post on Make it Missoula discusses a test that Paul calls The Wheaton Eco Test. It’s a simple test to measure one’s eco level. The test is simple. If you spend more money on electricity per year than the average American you can’t consider yourself eco based on the criteria of this test. I thought it would be interesting to see if our family passed the test.
A couple days after the new year I read an inspiring post at Zen to Fitness, called Self Sufficient Training. The post discusses ways and the benefits of training in the outdoors as an alternative to gyms and how it can be a more self sufficient fitness option. I’ve been struggling lately of having any real motivation in going to the gym. Over the past 3 years I’ve been pretty consistent at going to the gym for resistance training and cardio workouts. I’m just not a big fan of workouts on machines or indoors for that matter. I’m more of a get a workout from playing soccer, basketball, or going for a hike type of person. Don’t get me wrong, I think working out in gyms and using free weights or machines is better than nothing. The article above gave me the idea and motivation to do my first real structured outdoor workout.
[Use your imagination to find workout equipment in the outdoors. Here is my outdoors stairsmaster.]
We go through quite a few cans of olive oil spray every year. We seem to use it for almost every meal we cook. My wife picked up a refillable Misto Olive Oil Sprayer recently. Many might already use these, but I thought I would share this as it is a great way to reduce waste since we will no longer be throwing all of those olive oil spray cans in the landfill any longer.
It seems easy enough to use. There is a plastic cap underneath the top that twists off to allow it to be filled. Fill only half way to allow for pressure build up when pumped. Replace the top, pump, and spray.
So I wanted to share this because I’m guessing since it’s a non-aerosol can that it’s better for the environment. Those aerosol olive oil spray cans have soy and anti-foaming propellants, and may contain milk and wheat. This way you will be spraying pure olive oil. Plus I’m hoping it will save us some money by not having to purchase new cans.
Now that the holidays have past and a new year is among us I want to document my top projects for the homestead for this year. I’m going to try to keep this as a top 10 of our main projects.
Liver is probably the most widely accepted and well known of the the organs we eat (beef, chicken, deer, etc). It’s kind of a tradition with deer hunters on the night of the harvest to cook the liver usually fried with onions. Most hunters that I know still do this but from what I’ve heard it’s becoming less and less common. This year I used the recipe below for fried venison liver and onions the night of harvesting my first deer (a doe). 2 days later I harvested my second deer and decided to freeze the liver and the heart for later use. I’m sure it won’t be as good as eating them fresh but we will see.
Stuff you will need:
Indigenous people of America believed that eating the heart of a harvested deer transferred the spirit of the deer to the hunter. Whether one believes this or not, venison heart is an excellent source of vitamin B, protein, and has little fat.
[Grilled venison heart kabobs with about 4 or 5 pieces already eaten from each]
Once the deer has been field dressed, cut the heart and the liver from the gut pile. I always keep a gallon size zip lock bag in my pack to place them in. When you get home place the bag in the refrigerator until you can clean them up. Clean the heart by cutting it in half and remove all the veins, arteries, and fat. Rinse with water and cut away any damaged parts.
I like to marinate and grill the heart. Cut the heart into 1 inch pieces. Marinate the pieces in 1 cup of balsamic vinegar, some fresh thyme, and salt and pepper. Marinate for about 24 hours. Grill the venison heart pieces on medium high to high for about 3 minutes and then turn for another 3 minutes or so. I like to do it skewer or kabob style.
If you have a way you like to prepare venison heart, let me know in the the comments section.
After one has successfully harvested a deer, it must be field dressed. Field dressing is the removal of the internal organs of the deer (or other hunted animal). Removing the internal organs ensures that the body will rapidly lose heat and prevent bacterial growth on the surface of the carcass. This process is critical to preserving the meat properly.
Hunting has become an important source of meat for us over the past 2 years. The deer we have harvested have been our primary source of meat for about 7 or 8 months out of the year, depending on how you look at it. I know some might be against the harvesting of deer or other wild game and I don’t really want to go into why one shouldn’t be against it. I would like to explain why and how we hunt and what it provides for us. I would also like to share my history with hunting and hopefully provide some encouragement to others who might have an interest but might feel that it’s to overwhelming to start. This is the first of maybe 3 or 4 posts on deer hunting.
[My primary objective when deer hunting is to successfully harvest a deer, but I also am able to spend some needed time in the woods observing]
PDF