City Rube

If you ever needed proof that we are city slickers dressed up as country people, today's post is it. I mean, we put the 'urban' in urban farmer. We are city bumpkins. Oh yes we are, and after you read this, you're going to wholeheartedly agree.

(Deep breath) Here it is....

The plant coming up in our garden that we thought was WHEAT is actually OATS.

I have been suspicious for a while now, because this just isn't the inflorescence I was expecting. But the seed packets were clearly labeled wheat. Emmer, Red Fife, Sonora. I planted wheat. So even though the flower heads didn't look right, I didn't question it. It must be wheat. Even though it looked like the wild oats growing in our open space, I was convinced it was really wheat. I was blind to the fact that it didn't look anything like wheat.

What finally convinced me?

This.

This is now coming up in some of the beds. This is clearly WHEAT. So when I saw that, I was like - what's this other stuff????

Believe me when I tell you, I have never felt so stupid in all my life. 

Ok. So now we've established what's actually growing in our beds, the question is: How did we get oats instead of wheat? 

I immediately wrote to Baker Creek Seed Company, where I bought the packets last year. They wrote back right away; they have received no other reports of adulterated seed, so it's unlikely that their seed was mixed up. They offered me a complete refund or replacement, which was super nice, but I told them that we didn't need that - this was an experiment and not a cash crop for us. But, this means I still don't know how my beds got covered in oats and not wheat.

The only thing I can think of is that organic straw we got from Full Belly last spring. I don't know if you remember that we drove out there and picked up two bales of rotting straw? There were a lot of seed heads left in it, and they had a similar inflorescence to the oats, so that straw could have very well been oats. And it's very possible that it shed all of those seeds and created a seed bank in my beds. And then when it had a chance to germinate and grow, it did so.

This is the only thing I can think of. Tom asked me, "but why isn't it coming up in ALL the beds? why isn't it coming up in the shallots and garlic etc?" Good question. The answer is twofold: I've been weeding out germinating grasses from all the beds where I didn't want wheat - I just thought that stray wheat seeds had blown into those beds when I seeded the others; and also we didn't use that Full Belly straw on every bed last year. 

So. I have learned quite a lot from this little (BIG) experiment. Firstly how to identify wheat. (Kind of important I think.) Secondly, that I need to cut down this oat crop before it sets seed again. Like, immediately. Thirdly, that's it's not a complete failure, because we still have our organic straw for the season. We could even wait until the oats mature and figure out how to harvest and eat them. But doing that would ensure another load of oats germinating all over the garden, and I don't want that.

Cutting down this crop of oats now means also cutting down the wheat that is coming up. So that's really disappointing, I can't sugarcoat that. 

Now, I have a question for you, dear readers. How many of you KNEW that this crop I was posting pictures of WASN'T wheat? How in all that is holy did you not holler at your computer screen "IGNORANT!" Or did you? It's ok, you can tell me.

And let me say, for the hundredth time, that I am not an expert. (Like you needed even more evidence!)  I am bumbling around in this urban farm thing, sometimes hitting on something that works, but more often than not, making mistake after mistake. It's humbling, for sure. But it's good to be reminded of your own humanity frequently - humility is not a bad thing. Though I really feel like an idiot this time.

One more try...

We've tried growing mushrooms twice before, with zero luck. We've used old logs, fresh logs, oak, ash. We've tried them in different places in our yard. no go. Mostly I think it's too hot here, but I wanted to try one more time, make sure to place the logs in a very very shady place, and use water from the rain barrel (not the municipal system), and see if we can't make it happen.

So again I ordered plug spawn from Fungi Perfecti in the Pacific Northwest. The last two times we tried shiitake, so I ordered oyster spawn this time, hoping for a different result. An arborist pruned our oak this past Monday, so I saved some thicker branches, and also got some older Coast Live Oak logs from my parent's property. I invited a classmate from my school, who has also always wanted to try this - he brought the entertainment, his adorable three-year old daughter. Who, it must be said, was completely indifferent to the project, and preferred coloring.

My friend brought some more plug spawn - Shiitake, Reishi, and Lion's Mane. So we had a lot of variety to choose from. The process really couldn't be simpler; you just drill holes (5/16th bit), hammer the plugs in with a mallet, and seal the holes with melted wax. 

For the logs we kept, we made a makeshift rack to place them on so they are off the ground, in the deep shade under the ceanothus. My friend took his home to Oakland where they will likely fare better. I vow to water mine every day. And cross my fingers.

Here is a picture from Sharondale Mushroom Farm in Virginia - this is how they look when they fruit. I can only hope we will have a similar picture next winter.

image credit: Sharondale Mushroom Farm

I have contacted a local mushroom farm, Far West Fungi, to see if I can visit and have a tour. If so, you know I'll share the journey with you!

Have you grown mushrooms successfully? I'd love to hear more about it.

Sorrel

I'm considering planting more sorrel. I only have the one plant, which now measures about a foot across, and it's in a place where the deer can access it - which means I get about one decent large harvest per year, and maybe a couple of smaller harvests. So I really need to plant more of these perennial, cold-hardy herbs. 

Why would I want sorrel in my garden? After all, Rumex is a weed in many places; it produces so much seed that it is often difficult to control. However, here in my hot dry summers, it doesn't send up too many flowers, and they are easily removed to prevent seeding. Sorrel is cold-hardy and comes back every spring. And I love the taste of this bright green leaf!

Sorrel is related to rhubarb and contains high amounts of oxalic acid, the flavor that gives rhubarb (and other greens) its tanginess. Sorrel tastes sharp and lemony, and adds a really nice zing to salads or to a sautéed pile of greens. But the way I really like to eat it is in soup! 

We first had sorrel soup at the Apple Farm two years ago, and it blew my mind. Creamy, lemony, smoky, it hits all the notes. So I've made it every spring since (ok, it's only been a couple of springs since) and it's definitely now a tradition. Tom likes it, Adam thinks it tastes like "grass soup," and Kate refuses to even try it, but I LOVE IT. I say, seek out a bunch of this at your local farmers' market, and make it this weekend for lunch. It also reheats nicely. Here's the recipe:

Enjoy!

Catching Up

As I write, the arborists are here pruning our Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) and California Pepper (Schinus molle) trees. Both were desperately overgrown, and I'm looking forward to the increased light in the flower beds they cover. I am saving some of the larger branches for mushroom inoculation. I'm going to try again - I've tried twice with no luck. I'm hoping the fresh oak logs will be just the ticket, and I've ordered oyster mushroom plug spawn.

Geum coccineum 'Totally Tangerine' - planted last year, finally blooming

We've had a lot going on here and I want to catch you up.

I was absolutely sure the bees were going to swarm this past weekend. Every single day, I had witnessed a hovering mass of bees near the entrance; these are just-born bees orienting themselves to home, before they go back inside to start their lives of work. So I knew that there were LOTS of bees in there, and more every day. They had also started bearding at the hive entrance. Usually bees beard only if it's very hot, and they need to cool off the hive by removing extra bodies. Of course it hasn't been hot, in fact it's still chilly at night, so I knew that the bees were running out of room. And possibly preparing to swarm.

Just a goatee, really.

We opened the hive Sunday afternoon and it was simply full to the brim with bees. Usually when we open, always from the back of the top bar hive (a horizontal, not vertical, hive), there are only a few bees, and after we get deeper in, we find the crowds. Not so this time. There was brood on all but the very back two bars, which is incredible. We've never had that much brood. Tom and I were planning to take out a couple of bars of honey, but since all the bars had brood on them, we didn't take anything. We just added the last three bars we could squeeze in, to buy them some time. They'll likely swarm in the next week or so, and then we'll get in there and take out some of the older bars near the front, making sure we don't get any queen cells in the process.

Luna.

Another thing we had to deal with was a sick chicken. We have six chickens, two of whom haven't laid in at least a year, one of them Luna (above). In the last week or so, Luna has started to act funny - not eating the fresh greens I'd give her - and walking with a strange, rocking gait. She developed a very wide-legged stance, and her abdomen appeared very swollen. When I'd pick her up (strange in itself, she would usually run from me), I'd notice that she felt dense and heavy, which is extremely unusual. 

When I researched what all this meant, I came up with five different problems, all of them fatal. The final thing that decided us was that Luna would just sit, with her tail and bum raised high, and would sort of heave with every breath. She was clearly in pain. So, we made the difficult decision to cull her. This is never a pleasant thing, but sometimes it is the best thing all around. 

The wheat took a real beating in the hail we had, twice in the last couple of weeks. Some of the stalks are still upright, but many have keeled over. I'm still hoping for a harvest.

I once heard a homesteader say that the best thing about homesteading was that there was always something to give away. We have found that to be true. It's such a pleasure to be able to give eggs, honey, canned goods, seedlings, flower bouquets. Kate needed a basket for her theater company auction; it was easy to come up with a 'Good Eats' basket full of treats from our little urban farm. I was proud of this basket and glad to share our bounty to raise money for the group.

Homemade apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, honey, jam, cured olives, sweet pickle relish, dried lemons and zest, dried herbs, and fresh eggs. Oh, and a sunflower seedling.

I'm enjoying hunting the yard for tiny insects to photograph with my new macro lens. I especially like this one - a little guy I found on a leaf - he was smaller than a grain of rice.

I've no idea what kind of beetle this is.

I also found an egg sac on some mulch.

I'm excited to see what hatches. Remember three years ago, when we found that egg sac, and it hatched, and we couldn't figure out what they were? I showed my insect instructor a photograph, and he said those were orb weavers!

All of the tomatoes I planted germinated, which is fabulous; I'll be potting them up later this week, and then they'll go into the greenhouse with the peppers. I'm not planning to get the summer veg into the garden until May 1. This has been such a crazy season weather-wise, I'm not hedging my bets, I'm going to make sure everything is warm before I plant out.

Evaluating Beer

Tom here. Last Fall I brewed a few different kinds of beers in preparation for the holidays, including an Irish Stout. I'd successfully made this stout the prior year, and it's the perfect beer for cold nights, alongside a pot roast or something else hearty.

Elizabeth mentioned this to one of her classmates at school, and her classmate said that he knew a cicerone -- a beer sommelier -- and could she bring in a bottle for him to evaluate. We recently got the results, and they're fascinating.

A quick note about cicerones. The idea of a beer judging and beer sommeliers is fairly new. There's the Beer Judge Certification Program, which started in the mid-80's. They publish a list of about 100 official beer styles, each with their own characteristics. Here's what they have to say about Irish Stout:

A black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee. The balance can range from fairly even to quite bitter, with the more balanced versions having a little malty sweetness and the bitter versions being quite dry. Draught versions typically are creamy from a nitro pour, but bottled versions will not have this dispense-derived character. The roasted flavor can be dry and coffee-like to somewhat chocolaty.

The Cicerone program is a certification program from the Craft Beer Institute, training people on tasting and handling beer.  They've got four levels of certification, from Certified Beer Server through Master Cicerone. The cicerone that tasted my beer gave me notes in four main areas (aroma, appearance, flavor, and mouthfeel), and then an overall impression.

It was fun to read -- my beer's aroma was "moderate dark chocolate, light roast/turkish coffee, plum esters above threshold, slight sour aroma like worcestershire". The flavor was "intense cocoa powder flavors, medium sweetness of candied nuts and dark fruits, plums, some cherry."

In the overall notes, he called it a "very solid expression of the style", but noted that the "aroma could have been more alluring and the mouthfeel was disjunct given the depth of the flavor". He gave me a few suggestions for next time (increased proportions of very dark grains; dropping the ferment temperature).

I will admit that I was not sure about having my beer judged. I do okay with the homebrew, but it's more of a hobby than anything, and I've definitely made a couple of beers that didn't stack up to my initial hopes. Having gone through this makes me want to experiment a little more and do some side-by-side comparisons. I'm not sure I'll be able to sense candied nuts and dark fruits in my beer anytime soon, but it would be fun to try.