Wooden spoons and cutting boards are great to use in the kitchen, but, like cast-iron, they require the right kind of care.
A popular way to keep wooden kitchen ware conditioned is to use mineral oil and beeswax, but is this the healthiest option for your family?
Wardee from TradtionalCookingSchool.com shares her thoughts on the healthiest ways to care for wooden spoons and cutting boards in one of her recent podcast episodes, #AskWardee. Enjoy!
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If you spend a lot of time out in the garden, you’ll know how important good quality, functional clothing is.
You don’t need just any old pair of jeans and t-shirt that you don’t mind getting dirty, although that might be your outfit of choice. Your gardening clothes will need to not only be able to withstand dirt stains, sun, sweat, and rain.
Here are some pointers for choosing functional, comfortable, and sturdy gardening clothes.
Covering
Most seasoned gardeners opt for long sleeves and pants when spending time in the garden. This provides a nice barrier against the sun, as well as dirt or potentially itchy plants and grass. Covering clothing can actually keep you cooler than short sleeves and pants, in many cases, so long clothes are great for both cool, damp morning harvests, and hot, mid-summer weed pulling sessions.
Breathability
A very important factor of good gardening clothes is that they are breathable, especially if you choose clothing that covers your skin. Light colors might show dirt, but they’ll reflect the sun and heat well also, so white, beige, and tan clothing are ideal. Natural fibers or shirts and pants specifically designed for breathability are great for letting your body heat vent out and cool air in.
Function
Clothing with lots of pockets or loops for tools are very nice as well, although you can also opt for a garden belt or apron. There are many available on the market, and plenty of designs you can make for yourself as well. If you’d prefer to use your clothing to store seed packets, tools, twist-ties, and other gardening paraphernalia, clothing items like cargo shorts or vests with lots of pockets can be very handy.
Sturdiness
While old jeans or dress shirts are great for cheap garden clothes that you won’t mind getting beat up and dirty, but you might want to invest in some quality pants and breathable, functional tops that will last. Being out in the hot sun all day, worn down by dirt, and washed frequently, can wear away at clothing, so if you’re recycling old clothes for garden clothes, they’ll probably be in tatters pretty soon. This might be just fine for you, especially if you go through clothes quickly anyway, but just something to keep in mind. If you garden frequently, it might be a very worthy investment to get some well-made, quality clothing to withstand a few seasons out in the garden.
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Sour cream is a delicious staple condiment of American cooking, that can greatly enhance the taste of many delicious dishes, from potato pancakes, to baked potatoes, to nachos.
Most people will be familiar with the store-bought version, a thick, gooey cream that comes in a plastic container and often with additives and even artificial flavoring. But did you know you can very easily make your own at home?
Like pickles, homemade sodas, yogurt, and sourdough, sour cream is one of the many delicious, healthy, and easy home fermentation products that anyone can try themselves. And it just so happens to be one of the easiest! You don’t need anything at all but raw milk. However, that the milk you use be raw is essential. Pasteurized milk, that has been heated to very high temperatures to kill the bacteria that naturally occurs in the milk, simply won’t sour the way cream from raw milk will, and it is also homogenized, meaning the cream won’t naturally separate for you to harvest.
When you buy fresh, raw milk, if you let it sit for awhile, cream will naturally separate on the top, and this is what you can use to make sour cream. Here’s what it looks like:
As you can see there is a distinct line between the cream on top, and the milk. That cream is what you use to make sourcream. Also, if you have milk that has naturally soured before you were able to use it up, you can use the cream on top for sour cream. This is a great way to use up soured milk!
Here’s what you do:
Skim the cream off the top of your raw milk, and place in a small jar. I find a metal measuring cup works best for this, but you can use anything you can dip into the cream and extract it, without mixing the milk in with the cream.
If you get a small amount of milk in with the cream you’re skimming, don’t worry, it will naturally separate later.
Once you’ve collected all your cream and put in a separate jar, cover loosely with the lid, and leave on your countertop for 24 hours. After 24 hours, taste and smell it, to see if it has soured. It should have thickened in this time, although it won’t be as thick as store-bought sour cream. Depending on the weather, it might need another 24 hours, just use your own judgment and preference.
When soured, tighten the lid, and put in the refrigerator, will it will thicken even more. Use as you would regular sour cream, and enjoy!
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I mentioned whey, recently in my article on healthy homemade probiotic lemonade, so if you’ve read that already you’ll be familiar with it. Whey is what separates from curds when milk curdles, or what comes off of cheese or yogurt during the straining process.
One of the coolest ways you can use up extra whey (and if you’ve ever made cheese, you’ll know how much you get) is to make homemade ricotta cheese. When whey first forms, it is full of protein strands, and you can essentially “harvest” these through a simple process to make delicious ricottta cheese. It’s a great way to make the most of a gallon of milk. I like to make yogurt with my milk, strain it, and then make ricotta cheese with the leftover whey! Much cheaper, not to mention significantly healthier, than buying these products individually.
This video gives an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to make ricotta cheese at home. Enjoy!
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It’s been officially spring for a few weeks now, but depending on where you live in the country, you could be already wearing your summer clothes, or still shoveling your driveway.
Temperature is a far better indication of official spring weather than the calendar, and I thought these handy infographics from Cultivatorcorner.com were a great resource to determine what you can plant and when. If you’re already ordering seeds and planning out your garden, this is a great quick-glance guide for when you can get them started.
Enjoy, and happy planting!
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If you are not composting already, it is something you should start doing sooner rather than later. The following are some simple tips that can help you to get started so you can enjoy the benefits of compost.
Tip #1 – The Compost Material Should Be Cut into Small Pieces
One of the mistakes that many people make when they are starting with composting is to throw in large chunks of material into the pile, thinking that it will just break down easily. By cutting everything into smaller pieces, it will help the compost to break down faster and easier. Keep the pieces to about an inch or so, and you will find that it works quite well.
Tip #2 – Keep It Damp
The compost pile should have moisture in it. You do not want it to be dry, as it will take much longer to decompose. However, you do not want to have it wet, either, as this could ruin the compost by flushing out the nutrients. Keep an eye on the compost to make sure it doesn’t get too dry, and if it does, slowly add water to get it to the point where it is just a bid damp.
Tip #3 – Keep It Aerated
It is important that you remember to turn the compost pile. You can do this very simply with a shovel or a pitchfork, and depending on the size of the compost pile, it should only take a few minutes. If you are keeping your compost in a barrel rather than in a pile, you can simple turn the barrel. However, if you are using a worm composter, those helpful little worms will take care of the turning for you, making things even easier. By aerating the compost, it ensures consistency, and the decomposition will happen faster.
One of the other benefits of turning is that you can find areas that might be too dry and then add some water, as mentioned above.
With these tips, you will find that composting is even easier that you thought.
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It’s spring time, and if you’re an experienced gardener, you’ve probably been planning out your spring garden and what to plant for months now.
But if you’re just getting started, either on your very first garden or second or third, you might be overwhelmed with the amount of choices for what to grow in your food garden this year.
Here are a few tips for how to narrow down your options and choose what to plant:
History
Obviously, if you’ve gardened already, you’ll want to think about what you’ve successfully grown in the past, and go with what worked. But also be honest with yourself about what didn’t work.
For example, you might have really had your heart set on growing tomatoes, but if you struggled with pests or diseases last year, or simply didn’t have much of a harvest, you might want to skip them this year. However, just because a crop failed, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should always skip it, if you learned a lot in the process and can take some simple measures that might prevent the trouble you ran into last year, it may be worth it to give it another shot.
Region
If you are a first-time gardener and don’t have a garden history as a starting-off point, do some research on what grows best in your region. That doesn’t necessarily mean your zone, although you should definitely have a good idea of what your zone is and what grows well there. But the climate and soil in your town or county will play a factor as well. Talk to friends and neighbors who have gardens and ask them what they recommend, or local farmers and nurseries.
Know your garden
Every garden space is different, and if you don’t have full sun, your neighbor might be able to grow something that will never work in your garden. If you have partial shade all day, there’s still plenty you can grow successfully, so don’t worry. Just watch the sun patterns in your intended garden space for a few days, and plant accordingly.
Know your lifestyle
You’ll also have to take into account how much time, energy, and physical ability you have to put into your garden. If you work full-time, for example, you won’t want to plant anything that requires constant watering unless you can set up a drip irrigation system, for example.
Also, anything you plant and intend to consume, you’ll have to harvest and process. When choosing seeds, make sure you know what’s involved in harvesting and preserving, and that it’s something you’ll actually consume! You don’t want to get to harvest time and have a wonderful, productive crop go to waste because you’ve got no time to process it.
In the end, while it’s always best to play it safe, don’t be afraid to experiment, too. If you’re a first-time gardener, even if your first garden isn’t perfect, you’ll still learn a lot in the process! Happy planting!
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As you’re considering what to plant in your garden this year, you might have thought about sunflowers. Sunflowers are a wonderful and fun plant to grow; they are gorgeous in the garden, easy to plant and propagate, and their seeds are also an amazing source of fat, protein and nutrients.
Growing the same amount of calories and nutrients from other sources isn’t always so simple, so sunflowers are a great option for the beginner food garden. If you’re trying to get your kids more involved in gardening, sunflower is a really fun way to do that. They can easily plant and tend to the sunflowers themselves, and they’ll love to help with the harvesting–and eating–of the nutritious, delicious seeds.
This video shows how to harvest and process the sunflower seeds. When you’re choosing what to plant, it’s always a good idea to think about the whole process of growing, not just planting and caring for the crop, but harvesting, processing, and storing as well. So if you’re considering growing sunflowers, this is a great video to watch beforehand to see if it’s something that would work for your garden. Enjoy:
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