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Today I made candles for the first time.

Hey, I look somewhat Amish!

As I mentioned before my friend Nao is a backyard beekeeper and runs BeeCause Pollination Project. She had some cappings she wanted to melt down and try her hand at candles. We went over to Wicks and Wax in Burnaby to pick up some molds and wicks and more beeswax to add to Nao’s. Beeswax is EXPENSIVE! The staff at the store were really helpful and understanding (I had the two kids with me) and talked us through wick sizes and took a look at Nao’s wax. They thought we were pretty funny starting with the hardest wax for candles, and smiled wider when they heard that next up I was going to make cold process soaps when I’ve never even tried melt and pour…

Anyway, back to the candles. Nao’s friend Jenn had just made candles in a class through her community centre, and I had read a couple books, so we had a little bit of knowledge. We did pretty well considering that otherwise we were completely new to the whole process.

We had a few acrylic molds and a couple metal ones. We also decided to use a few jars and old tealight containers to make some candles that wouldn’t be released. I also wanted to make some tapers for a menorah - so small, thin ones. We also made a few tapers towards the end that went well.

The books I took out of the library were:

• The Encyclopedia of Candle Making Techniques (Sandie Lea)
• Candlemaking for the first time (Vanessa-Ann)
• The Complete Candlemaker (Norma Coney)

Most the books really only talked about making beeswax candles by rolling pre-made sheets. Otherwise they spoke about adding beeswax to other paraffin or soy bases or said “beeswax is difficult to deal with and expensive to buy”. They also concentrated on making the kind of candles you’d find in the Church Lady’s bathroom - not really my style. I used the techniques and instructions from the first two books and just used mold-release to help deal with the stickiness. We learned the hard way that you want to lower the temperature of the wax when making the tapers (around 160 F) compared to the 175-180 F for the pillars we made in the mold.

It took WAY longer than we were expecting to spend, and we have a ton more tapers to make - it took 6 hours to make the candles you see below. I really enjoyed myself, it’s a very meditative process and smells SO good.

So, if you can get your hands on some affordable beeswax I do recommend making candles. It wasn’t as hard as it seemed it would be (those fear-mongering crafties!) but it did take a little longer. Also, the start-up costs are intimidating - I probably spent $80 making what will probably end up as 3-4 pillars or jars and maybe 8 large tapered and 9 menorah tapers… Keep in mind though that I can keep and use the molds again, and that to buy these candles would cost WAY more than $80. $50 of that was the beeswax, wick and other consumable materials.

If you have any questions about our first experience making candles let me know. Tomorrow I’m probably going to make that soap. This will probably be more amusing…

Last but not least:

Is good. Ours, that is. We’ve racked it to the secondary fermenter, and added some chocolate to round out the flavour. This is probably the most over-flavoured Christmas Ale ever, but it’s ours…

We’ve decided to make another batch next weekend. Either this batch will suck and so we’ll need a replacement, or this batch will be amazing and we will drink it all too fast (and give it away) and we’ll need a replacement. Algebra may not be my forte but my logic is infallible…

What a great resource!

Our beer was not performing up to (our) standards. Bubbling was minimal. The cat had knocked out the airlock and we were concerned the yeast was not working as it should.  We did a reading of the specific gravity and it had gone from 1.057 to 1.029. Not too bad, but not great. So, our friend Mark came to save the day.

We added some yeast exciter, gave it a good stir and stuck the lid back on.

Then, we tried to do some math. Apparently, you can figure out the alcohol content of a beer with the following equation. Original Gravity (OG) is that first reading you take, Terminal Gravity (TG) is the reading you take when you move it to the secondary fermenter or keg (or bottles).

% Alcohol = ((1.05 x (OG – TG)) / TG) / 0.79

we wanted to figure out what TG we would need to get a % alcohol of 6.

so then I tried to do some algebra. 

I think I did great until I got to X + X0.045 = 0.0485. I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to deal with that, and then I started making stuff up. So then we decided to go back to the original equation and make a guess. I suggested (given what I got to at the end of the algebra) that it would be 1.011. That got us 6% within two decimal points, and I scared the beejesus out of Mark and Amos.

So, all in all a good night. The beer isn’t necessarily ruined and neither is my brain (at least not completely).

If you can tell me how to get that algebra equation right please do, I’m going bonkers.

No, not my kids. It may be worthwhile posting a few of the benefits of “homesteading”. The easy ones I mean. The ones that are yummy. This is what keeps me going!

homemade bread, never store-bought:

And, a first for me - home made beer! I’m an idiot for not taking good pictures as we made this Christmas Ale, I was too busy doubting my brewmastering abilities. Next time, I promise.

Gardening Class

So today I went to a one-time three hour class on garden planning and preparation. It was offered by http://www.villagevancouver.ca/ in the same series as that chicken class I attended a few weeks ago.

The class was taught by a man named Grant Watson, and it was geared towards beginners like myself. Grant also founded a company called Grant’s Gourmet Gardens (http://www.gourmetgardens.ca/) which mostly consists of edible landscaping. He also runs some workshops about gardening for/with kids which sounds really interesting to me.

So, I went into the class hoping to learn more about some of the things that have been confusing me:

1. how to get started in terms of scheduling (what needs to be done by when)
2. SOIL. For some reason soil was really intimidating me.
3. how to know what I should grow given a) my skill set b) my location and c) the time I have to actually get into the garden.

This really was the perfect class for me. I would recommend it for anyone who’s not yet started or who maybe has started and not gotten anywhere. I am sure I was annoying with all my questions, but Grant (and the rest of the people in the class) took it in stride and I got answers that worked well for me. Although the group was really varied there wasn’t a single question asked that didn’t help me - even the ones I thought I knew the answer to. It was nice to be in a room with other people at the same point in the process as me. So, if you have access to something like this class, go! Also, if you are in Vancouver I strongly recommend joining Village Vancouver. They have great offerings in terms of courses, and they’re friendly and helpful people who really are just looking to build community in the areas of sustainability and food production etc.

Sorry, back to the class. I’m not going to write out all my notes - I don’t thing that would be fair given they charge for the course. The following are highlights that stuck out to me, or came up in discussion.

Grant talked about planning first.

1. Goals: what do you want to grow/eat? how much time can you commit? What other uses will you have for your garden? This was interesting to me, as I think lots of people forget they also expect to have room for their kids to play, a place to eat al fresco etc.
2. Location: think about sun vs shade, where is the best soil, how is the water in various parts of the garden (boggy vs dry) and of course more.
3. Layout: my notes are rough here but I know he mentioned staged planting (tall plants versus shorter plants etc.) Also, we chatted about how to keep vegetables that have the same water and nutrient requirements together but not to put all your eggs in one basket (in terms of pests/disease) by having all of one vegetable in one spot only. I had never thought of it that way- I always assumed it would be more efficient to keep them together in terms of maintenance and harvesting.

We talked a lot about winter gardening, which was great. I had never heard of using crop cover to protect soil between growing seasons. I would recommend everyone who will be wanting a productive plot to look at your options for winter crop cover. The benefits are keeping soil in place, keeping nutrients and carbon in the soil etc. You can either try to grow a winter crop like peas or plant something like fall rye or winter wheat that you then cut down and till into the soil or mulch the soil with to build up/retain nutrients. A reminder: you can plant your winter crop or cover in mid-July/1st week of August even if you are still harvesting your summer veg. The two crops won’t be in competition at that point.

I asked a lot of question about polytunnels/coldframes etc. as I was really confused. I knew I wanted one but didn’t know the details of why. Grant pointed out that they’re really just large coldframes (as they’re not heated like greenhouses are). They let you have an earlier start, and extend your harvest later (so extending your overall growing season). They also get hotter, which is good for crops like peppers or tomatoes. I asked if humidity was a problem and he suggested that once you get to June you keep the ends open. Also try to water the plants directly at the soil, not on the leaves.

Grant suggested that I talk to Greenway about getting organic soil/compost. He also reminded me that Lee Valley has a great and cost-effective low-flow irrigation system that I had always meant to use but had forgotten about. I’m thinking it should work perfectly with rain barrels, and they may even have the fittings I need to build the super-system that I’ve been dreaming up (lining up several barrels in sequence to capture more water in one rainfall). I’m even thinking of putting a simple sloped roof and gutter system on the chicken coop - although the comment on greenroofs for chicken coops is still worth investigating!

We talked about a lot more (seeds, how to start seedlings, when to plant what and how etc) but the biggest point I got out of the rest of the class was my dream: a schedule - of sorts.

Here’s my plan - big picture level - I haven’t figured out how to get calendaring on the blog so this format is going to have to do in the meantime.

November:

• meet with my Dad and friends who have said that they’d like to work on the garden in return for space and/or crops. We will have to sit down to figure out how we’d like to work out our deal and to plan what we want to grow. 
• choose and buy seeds

December:

• Plan layout of garden on paper

January

• Get rid of big bin and clean up yard
• build raised bed frames
• start onion seedlings

February

• Run irrigation system (rain barrels, low-flow irrigation and soaker hoses etc)
• Bring in soil mix
• start tomato, leek, garlic, spinach seedlings
• direct-plant peas

March

• Build polytunnel
• start broccoli, cabbage, kale, herbs, pepper seedlings
• direct-plant  salad and mustard greens, maybe early potatoes
• transplant tomatoes to polytunnel

April

• Build chicken coop and run
• start cucumber and squash seedlings (in fibre pots)
• direct-plant beets, carrots, anise, turnips maybe late potatoes
• transplant peppers to polytunnel

May

• direct-plant beans, corn and squash
• transplant cucumber to polytunnel
• Get chickens

So as you can see, a few things need to be done in November. I want to get started looking at seeds right away so that I have information to bring to the conversation with my friends and Dad. Grant recommended a group that a friend of mine used to work with, Farm Folk City Folk (http://ffcf.bc.ca/). They have SO much information on living sustainably (in terms of food) that you can almost get lost and maybe even overwhelmed on their site. It has a fabulous resource section that I think we should all get familiar with – especially if you’re looking to buy locally year-round. One thing they’ve got covered is seeds. This pagehttp://ffcf.bc.ca/resources/kp/seeds.html lists places you can get non-GM seeds that are local and therefore good for our specific climate. I think it’s vital that we support local farmers in seed saving, plant breeding etc. so please consider getting your seeds this route.

So, I’m off on a seed hunt, no complaints here! I’ll be back tomorrow with a list of my dream vegetables and varieties once I’ve had a good nose around. I’m going to be keeping in mind the layout of my garden, how to stagger harvests and planting, what actually grows well right here and what my kids will love to plant, foster and eat!

Wish me luck…

And had a heavy bus ride home.

Unsurprisingly, the Reader’s Digest Canadian Illustrated Guide to Green Gardening is a disappointment. Obviously it’s great that it focuses on Canada, and it does have a few pages on raingardens and natural pest control. I only really took it out because it has so many pictures, I thought it had to be useful. It’s not. At least, not to me. The majority of its (glossy, probably old-growth, bleached, white) pages discuss flowers, lawns and how to make a lovely outdoor room you won’t be embarrassed to show off to your colleagues. There are some good tips on helpful insects, a section each on fruit trees, vegetables and herbs - but they are all short, uninspiring and the prose is, well, boring. I like a mixture of technical speak AND anecdote, or at least something descriptive to make me WANT to plant the beetroot we’re discussing. I’m probably being too hard on it, but this book is everything I thought it would be which is too bad - it was heavy to carry home. Ah! A last minute find! At the back you’ll find a nice section on disorders, with excellent drawings. This looks useful for figuring out what’s going wrong and what to do about it. Still, I wouldn’t recommend lugging this thing home for the one section. Let’s see if we can find that elsewhere instead.

 I’m more excited about the next book on my lap – Garden City: Vancouver (Marg Meikle and Dannie McArthur). I liked the idea of this one because it seems to be all about the community gardening creates, rather than just the basics of laying out and maintaining vegetable beds.  Published in 1999, I doubt that the resources pages will be useful but the idea is great, and a good reminder. It starts of well with some helpful dirt on… dirt. Sorry, I had to. It’s so nice to know that everything it says is relevant to my yard. Same goes with the stuff about pests. The downside? It’s all rather brief. I’m not sure why they’ve written so little given that I have hundreds of pages to go – but I guess I’ll find out. Well, looks like it’s because they dedicate hundreds of pages to contact info of supplies, nurseries, designers and clubs, events and community gardens. Since it’s so old I wonder how useful that will be… I may try cold-calling a few people just for fun HA! There is a 5 page section on kids and gardening which is nice to see. A few more years and I will have two handy helpers to help me with all the trenching. Phew! Overall I like the idea of this book but it’s not worth buying for my library – unless they have a 2010 version, which it doesn’t appear exists yet.

Next up is A West Coast Kitchen Garden by Andrew Yeoman. I chose this book because a) it’s specific to my locale b) it’s about food-production and c) it has a picture of a lovely cottage on the cover, and I’m a sucker for cottages. YES! This one is almost a winner. No pictures (boo) but a fantastic compendium of ONLY vegetables and herbs (and the flowers that love to love them) that grow here. A perfect summary of the useful info for each one, laid out for easy reading and I would assume constant reference. Following that is a great section on “the growing environment” which includes a lengthy treatise on soil (I need help here) and pest management (SLUGS!). I’m happy to see a page or two on sustainability and a really great list of what herbs should grow where in your garden (and why). This is a book I would buy and keep handy. It’s funny, it’s older than Garden City, but it limits its resource pages to a few at the end, and that is what keeps it relevant to me. Garden City seemed to get bogged down in the resources, West Coast Kitchen Garden just IS a resource.

Last but hopefully not least is a book about my dream – 12 month or perennial gardening. It took 5 authors to write this one: The New Twelve Month Gardener: a West Coast Guide” (Stevens, Mitchell, Buffam, Hungerford and Fancourt-Smith). So many key words in that title and the VPL online catalogue STILL didn’t bring it up on my initial search. This one has lots going for it. One of the authors is called Hungerford for goodness’ sake. Oh, and it happily announces it sold over 30,000 copies (it came out in 2000). I would be pretty stoked if 30,000 people looked at my blog, and it’s on the internet.  Anyways, back to the book. No pictures. Moving on, it’s organized by month. I’m thinking this is either a stroke of genius or it’s really going to backfire. I do much better when information is laid out all in advance and then I can plug it into my *own* calendar once I decide which of it I like. That said, it’s not my area, and who knows – maybe this will be more useful in terms of being *cough* realistic.

So each month has a highlights section (what blooms), then a checklist of things to do for:

·          Annuals, perennials and bulbs

·          Trees, shrubs and climbers

·          Fruits, vegetables and herbs

·          General garden activities.

Then it launches into garden design and colour – but that’s in January only. In February the checklist is followed by information on shade gardens and native plants. March delves into soil. I LOVE the checklists, hate the random sorting of everything else they want to talk to you about. I’m OK in the end though, because the advice is well-written (generally) and thorough. So, I’d buy this book, especially if it was on sale.

So, that was what I found at the library in terms of gardening. I have a couple of books to take back *cough reader’s digest cough* so maybe I’ll take out some chicken tomes and see what I have to say about that.

I also snuck in some books on candle-making and soap-making. I’m not sure now is the time to discuss them because I actually just need to learn how to do that stuff and get on with it. Guess what you’re getting for Christmas!

It’s story time!

I’ve got a list of 2-3 books per subject that I need to get under my belt before starting to put in my garden in January/February. Most of these I found either via Amazon lists or westcoastseeds.com and then a little from chatting with a few people who actually know what they’re doing (hopefully because they read these books). I would still love some of your submissions and/or comments. Choosing books from the comments/reviews online always seems risky. My Dad also gave me a few old school gardening books that are a great start for me to figure out what I want to grow, and when they should be planted.

So, without any further ado here’s the list:

Mushrooms:

1. All that the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms - by David Arora
2. Mushrooms Demystified - by David Arora

Chickens:

1. Choosing and Keeping Chickens - by Chris Graham
2. Chickens: Tending a Small Scale Flock for Pleasure or Profit - by Sue Weaver
3. The Chicken Health Handbook - by Gail Damerow

Gardening:

1. Starter Vegetable Gardens - by Barbara Pleasant
2. Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades - by Steve Solomons
3. Perennial Vegetables - by Eric Toensmeier

So how did I choose what I did and why? The mushroom books were a no-brainer. The reviews are excellent, uncontested and there are LOTS of them. Even a guy who bought them not realising he didn’t live in the pacific northwest was happy with his purchase. Ridiculous.

Choosing the chicken books was a bit harder. I might not even get them all. There is SO much information online about raising chickens as it is. That said I will certainly get the one about chicken health. That’s the kind of thing where learning about prevention can make all the difference (who wants a dead chicken!? Oh yeah, not a DISEASED dead chicken). So I’ll probably get that one and maybe the Chris Graham book if I have some extra cash (so probably not). The other problem with the chicken books is that most of them are geared towards people with MANY chickens who are looking to sell the eggs, the meat and to start breeding and selling chicks. Although I may one day look to do the latter illegally (SHH!) I’m not going to have enough eggs to sell since I can only have 4 chickens at once. Since I’m getting pullets (hens to lay) they won’t be prime eating chickens so when I do slaughter them I’ll be stewing them myself. A lot of the chicken books are also pretty old, and feed seems to have changed a lot. There was one (not on the list) that I was interested in because it talked about formulating your own feed. I think that would be pretty awesome in terms of using up extras from the table and garden, but it seems unnecessary when organic chicken feed is available at Mark’s Pet Stop for $18 a bag (lasts 3 months). I’d rather just supplement with the other stuff.

Finally the gardening books. This was hard for a  completely different reason. I wanted EVERY book out there. I tried to narrow my search to keep myself in check. I focused on books about:

• organic gardening (if I can get the soil)
• starting your first vegetable garden (that’s Barbara Pleasant’s book -with a name like that how could I refuse?)
• permaculture/perennial gardening - looking at gardening as a year-round venture. My next community centre class is about gardening year-round. it seems so difficult but I’m sure there are SOME things that will make it, especially in the polytunnel I have planned.

So, that’s how I ended up with my list for gardening. They’re all available on westcoastseeds.com, but I’m not sure if that’s my cheapest route. I’m wondering if I could get a free copy in order to review them on here, but that’s probably pushing my luck.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts on my choices, or know of a book that I should include and haven’t, use my handy-dandy new comments feature to school me.

Yes, we’ve set up our gutters to catch rainwater. We don’t have the barrels yet because we have nothing to water. It will be a simple gravity-fed system from 3-4 barrels. In Vancouver that might be enough to avoid using city water at all.

Also, we don’t have our gutters that *aren’t* going to barrels feeding into the storm sewer system. We have a gravel pit in our backyard that we can direct runoff to. That way we’re not having rainwater that we don’t capture going through processing etc.

We’re also going to have a couple types of compost, and feed the chickens with table scraps that can’t be composted (except meat) - think cooked veggies etc. The chickens will be our major source of fertilizer.

The raised beds and the coop will be built from our extras/waste from the renos. I think we’ll need to buy a couple pieces of lumber here and there since we’re actually really using all our leftovers to finish the basement. We have leftover siding that will make the coop SUPER cute, and extra insulation to keep the chickens toasty warm in the winter. I’ll be using LED lights when we need to fake their daylight, and put them on a timer so they won’t accidentally be left on too long.

I think the most wasteful part of the garden will be setting it up. I’ll need to buy the soil/compost to fill the beds etc. because we have nothing but rubble out back after those renos. I’m not sure about where it all comes from, and I need to source/cost organic compost and soil to see if it’s an option. I’d say for sure we’ll be doing that, but I could find out that it would cost thousands, which I just don’t have.

Anyway, I’m still working on my library list. I’ll be back with that one soon - keep the comments coming!