One project down, about a million to go...

I finished the vertical planter box tonight with Steve's help. We got it installed under the porch after about 20 minutes of fighting the tight fit. I think we will stain it dark since the front porch is going to be stained dark when we rebuild it next year. After the stain goes on, we can fill the boxes with soil and plant the herb garden.

We have seeds for Cilantro, Parsley, Basil, Chives and Mint. I also want to grow dill for pickling this summer, but that has to be grown from the ground because of how tall it gets. The rest of the herbs will supply us with ingredients for fresh salsa, soup, stir fry and so on.

My next project is to get the actual garden boxes built and dropped into the ground. I also have to drop a couple of 4x4s and build the framework for the raised boxes which will contain my lettuces and smaller veg plants. These high boxes will be built with what I have left from the vertical planter. The dimensions will be 6x6x48. The 4x4 posts will have a 2x4 rail every 2 feet and the boxes will hang from the 2x4 rails.

After the garden is built and planted, I can focus on other projects. I want to get the rain barrels in to supply the garden, but part of the barrel system I am constructing requires new gutter to be installed on the extension at the back of the kitchen. I also have to get new downspout on both sides of the house to adapt for the barrels. Between these and redoing the whole backyard I have my work cut out for me in the next month. Be sure that I will update the pictures of both the food and projects I am creating.

Speaking of food, I recently got into TVP. It is even easier to use than gluten and can replace ground meat in most situations. The one big downside is that TVP is made from soy, and therefore does not offer as much protein as gluten. I made a huge pan of homemade sloppy joe from scratch using TVP and tomato sauce with some other ingredients. Essentially, you mix the TVP with hot water and in about 2-3 minutes, you have a nice chewy meat replacement. Not a bad way to get taco meat or any other ground meat substitute. And it's cheap. you can buy a pound of dehydrated TVP for about $1.50. I only needed about one cup from this to make enough sloppy joe for 4 people to eat and I have enough of the pound left to make maybe 7-8 more batches! Talk about sustainability!

After this summer, we should be able to cut our grocery bill down to about a quarter of what we spend now. At some point we may be able to get rid of our "grocery bill" altogether.

Here is what I made recently:

From Stuff I Made

In addition to growing,

I am also working on many projects around the house. Right now I am in the middle of redoing our hardwood floors, starting in the downstairs bedroom, but eventually throughout the entire house. I also just finished the framework for Gena's vertical herb garden that will replace the lattice under our front porch and I am building a pantry in the kitchen. As usual, I don't have any pictures to go along with these projects yet, but I will take some tomorrow and post them in my next update as well as on the Picasa account. These projects will go under an album titled Stuff I Made.

For the time being, I created the album and added a picture of the mountains in the Scottish Highlands for you all to enjoy. The same print is hanging on the wall in my massage room at work. My list of tasks by priority this summer read something like this:

1.Complete tear-down and rebuild of back yard
2.Build garden beds and planter boxes
3.Plant the garden
4.Build and install vertical planter under front porch
5.Finish the floor in the downstairs bedroom
6.Install privacy fence on back property line
7.Build pantry in the kitchen
8.Build bedframe
9.Paint Kitchen, Livingroom, Bedroom...etc.
10.Have a kick ass backyard movie party to celebrate how productive I have been this summer!

I hope I can get even a few of these things accomplished before I run out of summer to do them.

Finished products...

As promised, pictures of the things I have been rambling on about.

Seitan in the pot. This batch has been simmering for approx. 30 minutes at this point.

From Food I Made

The Kombucha that I started tonight as well as the batch I started Friday night. The top shelf is the finished product made from green tea and brewed for 13 days. The bottom left is a new jar of green tea I started Friday night and the bottom right is black tea I started tonight.

From Food I Made

Let's try again!

I tried to make a batch of seitan from memory...bad idea. My memory isn't all that great to begin with. Add that to the fact that I've only made one batch and you have a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what happened in my kitchen a few nights ago. The dough fell apart and turned into a gluteny mush in the pot. So tonight I decided to use instructions and see what happened.

The dough is simmering now and I guess we will see if this one turns out any better. I bought a different kind of gluten flour this time and I used the recipe from the bag instead of one I found online. Of course, after looking into my numerous vegan cookbooks I found at least one recipe in each of them for seitan. DUH! At least I have many variations to choose from now. I think I posted the link and the recipe for the last batch. This time I will just say that the brand of gluten flour I bought is Bob's Red Mill and the recipe calls for marjoram and sage in addition to the garlic. Instead of using veggie broth, you make a broth from water, soy sauce and mollasses. The bag I bought this time has something like 22oz. in it and the recipe calls for twice the gluten, effectively making a batch twice as big as the last one I concocted. This time I will take a picture of the finished product.

My Kombucha took longer than expected due to the cool weather, but I have one finished jar and two more brewing. Thanks to the natural way that bacteria reproduces itself, my output has already begun to increase exponentially. For every one batch I make, I get 2 cultures. I now have 2 and when these 2 batches are done I will have 4. Here's where the fun comes in for anyone who reads this and is interested in joining me. As I make more and more of this stuff, I will have less and less room to store all of these cultures since they each need their own mason jar home. I want to give them away one at a time as I create more and more. Now I know of at least 2 people I have already promised a culture to, so the first couple are already taken, but even if you aren't the one who wants one, ask your friends. See if anyone you know is interested in getting into this stuff. It's easy and I will include instructions with the culture itself. Let's get this socialist movement rolling!!

Finally, it's already the second week of April and I haven't gotten my seeds into the dirt yet! What am I thinking? At this rate I'll never have a garden. I need to get a move on if I want my dreams to come true, right? If anyone has any suggestions on how to jumpstart my seedlings, let me know via email or comment on this blog. I welcome any and all ideas!

Think about where your food comes from. Did you grow it or did a stranger? Like your baggage at the airport, no one but you should be handling your food. This is the only way to make sure there is no tampering with the products that fuel your body.

The results

So the seitan was a bit rubbery. And a little too salty. But I'm working on ways to remedy this. The next time I make it I am going to try adding a couple of things. Some of the recipes I've found call for tomato paste or even flour. I'm hoping by experimenting with some of these alternatives I can control the outcome a bit better.

My Kombucha brew is nearly done. I waited the 7 days originally specified and got a little skim on the top, not nearly done. Gotta wait a little longer. I have a couple people interested in this stuff already so if you are an interested party that has not yet contacted me, let me know and I will get a batch out to ya. While I know there are folks out there selling the culture and making money on the product, I'm a big proponent of both freeware as well as socialism. I believe that if I make something and it takes very little time and energy for me to do so, the product should be something I share freely. Aside from the amount of material that my family and I need to survive, I don't need to hoard or charge for the simple results of my work. I enjoy gardening and cooking so why not show off my talents by sharing the extra?

If I give something to someone, they will be inclined to give to someone else and eventually it will come back to me.