Modern Sustainability...old-fashioned methods

Dried Apricots and Blueberries

2013-01-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

One of nature's best fruits. The Apricot is hardy, mostly disease resistant and great tasting. There are few fruits that require as little work as an apricot.

We harvested from our Goldcot Apricot and other varieties. The fruit is relatively small, but it does not have to be peeled and they are easy to de-pit. We wash them, cut them in half and throw out any bad parts.

The halves are then soaked in orange juice to help the apricots keep their color as they dry.

Any citrus juice will do. Use whatever is convenient.

We spread them out on the drying racks. This is a simple air movement drying system with a small fan that blows air up through the racks stacked on top of each other. I still want to build a solar dehydrator, but have not gotten around to it yet. Some day I will find the time.

The finished product is beautiful and incredibly tasty. We also did blueberries at the same time. Blueberries do not require any added citrus juice to prevent discoloration. After they dry for a while (overnight) I will gently shake them to keep them from sticking to the trays. I will also exchange the top tray with the bottom to keep some from drying faster than others. After 2-3 days they should be dry enough to last for 6+ months in a zip-lock.

As expensive as dried fruit is, you can save a fortune by doing it yourself. They are a great snack and the taste gets better and stronger when the moisture is removed. You want to dry the fruit until it is leathery and just a little but crispy where it is thin. The blueberries are much dryer as they are a lot smaller. They do not take nearly as long either. You will have to experiment with how long your system takes and when you want to remove them based on your taste and texture preferences. The dryer it is, the longer it will last without molding. The moister it is, the juicier the texture. Good luck and have fun.

How to make a reflector oven

2012-09-26T20:14:00.001-07:00

How cool would it be to bake whatever you can bake at home on a campout? Reflector ovens are fun and a great way to impress new campers. We have cooked bread, biscuits, cookies, brownies, and cake on campouts using the below described system. Good luck amd have fun.

Start with straight green (sticks cut from a live tree) sticks about 2' long and 1/2" diameter. Sharpen one end to enable it to be pounded into the ground.

Pound the four green stakes into the ground to create a rectangle reflection area facing the fire. You also need stakes to support the pan of the item to be baked. The support stakes can either be green wood or tent stakes. These stakes will support the pan of the baked item. Stretch aluminum foil around the four stakes and then create a piece that will cover the top after the baked item is placed on the support stakes.

A good cooking fire will have areas for coals and an area where there will be a lot of reflective heat of the fire near the oven. Notice in the photo above, the bread is rising as it warms next to the fire before baking. In the foreground you have fried chicken and vegies cooking.

The bread as it starts baking. The flame should be close enough to reflect heat into the aluminum area, but not so close that it burns the baked item on the near side. I will not lie, you must experiment with this skill many times before you understand how it works. Occassionally, you will need to lift the top off and rotate the baked item to make sure that it is baking evenly.

The loaves of bread are almost done. If the loaves are cooking mostly on top and the bottom is raw, you can add coals below the stakes that support the baked item.

Have fun with what you try. Cherry pie was actaully very easy. Note we did not make a fancy top.

Cherry pie cooking.

Starting a 1 match fire

2012-01-06T11:35:00.010-08:00

Starting a 1 match fire is a fun trick to impress your friends on a campout or when you are grilling and you have run out of lighter fluid. People who think you have to have a ton of newspaper or gasoline to start a fire just don't understand how fire works. This skill will also help when you are camping in wet conditions and everyone else can't get their fire started because they are trying to start a fire with a pile of big wet wood.

The trick is to start with small (tooth pick size or smaller) dry wood. This is critical. If you try to start with large twigs, the match will burn out before the wood catched fire. If it does not snap, it is not dry enough. In Missouri and over much of the United States, Eastern Red Cedar is a great source of dry small kindling, but in other parts of the country other trees (Pine) will work. You just have to do a little experimenting to see what works best for you. Even in a down pour you can find dry dead interior twigs that are dry enough to start a fire with.

Air movement it critical. Place your small kindling up off the ground so that you can easily place a lit match under the kindling. Here I have used 2 larger branches to support the kindling. Note the size of the kindling in relation to the match. If it is windy, use your body to block the wind from blowing out the match.

You will want to have the next sizes of wood ready to go (already gathered, broken and next to the fire site) before you start the fire. The kindling will burn out fast so if you have to run around looking for more wood, your fire will be out when you return.

Hold the match horizontal so that it does not go out and so that it does not burn too fast. Fire burns up so if you hold it vertically it will burn out before the kindling is burning.

Once the fire is going, gently add more small kindling until you have a fire that you feel comfortable the wind will not blow out or the wood will not burn out if you walk away. Do not add large wood too quickly. Teach kids to place the kindling on the fire, not throw it, as that will disturb the fragile small fire.

You have started a 1 match fire. This is a fun challenge for a Boy Scout group or a great way to teach kids/adults how to build a fire without using newspaper or lighter fluid.

Primitive Cooking - Boy Scout Skills

2012-01-05T10:28:00.016-08:00

This is my first post in a new section of this blog that I am calling "Boy Scout Skills". Being a Boy Scout has been one of the best experiences in my life and has taught me how to plan meals and activities, survive through tough challenges and learn old-fashioned skills. A lot of my posts seemingly have very little to do with Modern Sustainability, however primitive cooking is skill that brings us closer to our origins. Anything that slows us down and teaches us old fashioned skills not only makes us think about things differently, but makes us more capable as people. I hope the new section on Boy Scout Skills will teach you some good camping skills, but also make you feel closer to your roots and feel more capable. Future topics will include; how to build a 1 match fire, how to build a reflector oven, how to camp comfortably in winter and primitive shelter building among other things.

I also hope this post may inspire some Scout Troops to do a primitive camp out or get back to old-fashioned scouting. Too many Troops these days camp out of pick-up trucks at camp grounds instead of hiking into primitive campsites. Patrol Dads tell the kids what to do instead of the older kids teaching the younger kids, learning leadership skills in the process. Or worse, the Dads cook over their Coleman stoves and the kids learn nothing about cooking. Scouting has embraced our high tech world allowing the boys to camp with cell phones and GPS units instead of learning to navigate by map and compass. A Scout will only learn how to plan when he has to carry his pack for a mile or two before choosing a camp site. You learn quickly what to bring and what not to bring if you have to carry a 50 lb. pack 3 miles. Kids learn how to patiently cook and clean their cooking gear when they have to function as a patrol. When the patrol Dad is giving out the orders they learn nothing about cooperation and team work. Boys learn that when you take care of your gear, your gear takes care of you when you camp in the rain or snow and you are warm and dry because you packed your sleeping bag and clothes in waterproof stuff bags. I could go on and on, but lets talk about primitive cooking.

You will hopefully never have to cook primitively, but it is fun and it makes you feel proud to know you can. Kids love it.

Here is pretty big fire with eggs cooked inside green peppers, bacon on a stick and cinnamon bread cooked inside a hollow orange peel. This is a typical breakfast on a primitive campout. First you build a big fire to create coals that you can pull aside in a flat area to set your peppers and oranges on. Fill them with eggs and bread prior to placing them in the coals. I cannot emphasize patience enough, especially when kids are involved. When people lose patience, food either gets burnt or gets spilled. Keep small fires going around the peppers and oranges by adding small (pencil size) sticks carefully around them without knocking them over. They will take at least 30 minutes to cook.

Here is a nice spit we built for cooking chickens. All wood that is close to the fire must be green wood (newly cut from a living tree) or else it will burn up. The tripod supports give the spit stability as the chickens may take several hours to cook.

Place the chickens on a long green stick that is intentionally rough because you want to be able to rotate the stick without the chickens spinning around only cooking one side. We use natural twine to tie the bird to the spit to keep the legs and wings from cooking too fast. The twine is also used to lash the spit together. This is a pretty advanced meal to cook over a fire, but nothing tastes better over a fire than a well-cooked chicken. Usually to accompany the chicken we will prepare indian ash bread and mud potatoes. The indian ash bread is just the dough from about 3 biscuits that are rolled into a ball and cooked in the coals. Rotate them in the coals and the outside will be dirty and burnt, but the inside is very tasty. They only take about 20 minutes to cook, so put them on last. The mud potatoes are really fun. You take large potatoes and pack them in mud. About 1" of mud all around the potato. Carefully place the mud packed potatoes into the coals and build a small fire above them so they are heated on all sides. In about 1 hour the mud will crack off and you have a perfectly cooked potato. The skin peels off cleanly and the white inside is perfectly clean and tasty. Everything tastes better over a fire, but I can eat these potatoes without butter or salt.

Bacon on a stick is a real treat for breakfast. It is easy and fun for the kids.

Eggs and cinnamon bread slowly cooking in the coals. When cooking over a fire it is almost like you have several different fires in one. You must keep flames going under the bacon or chicken and the coals cooking the bread, potatoes or eggs need to be away from the flames so that they are not disturbed when the wood is added below the meat. It takes practice to do this well.

We had better luck with the eggs cooked in a pepper with a lid on. We put two eggs in each large pepper.

A close up of the cinnamon bread cooked inside an orange. Of course we ate the orange as an appetizer before using the peel as a bowl to cook inside. Take care not to break the peel apart.

Indian ash bread and mud potatoes on our primitive table we lashed together. For the primitive campout we are not allowed to bring electrical devices so we use candles and the campfire for visibility. We also have to build our own shelters for the primitive campout, but that is a future post. Have fun.

Bitter Melons

2011-11-12T09:52:00.023-08:00

Bitter Melons are a beautiful vining plant that many researchers are finding to have incredible health benefits. There is a lot of research in Cancer prevention and Diabetes using Bitter Melons.

St. Louis University.

Cancer Research Journal.

Here is a good website that summarizes the benefits and ongoing research. My Dad has cancer and we have been making Bitter juice for him all summer. He loves it and thinks it is helping him immensely. The juice by itself is hard to drink, but add a couple of ounces to other fruit juice and it is pretty good. There are varieties from different parts of Asia. The ones I grow came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They refer to it as Delica Thorn Bitter Melon. Whether you want it for Cancer, Diabetes or other health benefits, it is a beautiful plant to grow.

A mature plant growing on tomato baskets. It is an aggressive vine and produces about 1-2 gallons of juice per plant.

Beautiful flowers are a bonus.

Here is a young fruit developing.

We seem to have about 5-6 fruit ripen at a time from our two vines. This is enough to make about 30 ounces of juice each time we process the fruit.

You want to harvest the fruit right before it starts turning orange. About 12" long.

Soak the fruit in water and clean all dirt off the skin.

The fruit has beautiful seeds inside varying from yellow to a deep orange.

Cut them in half to remove the seeds. Remove the stem and any blemishes on the skin.

Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and insides.

Cut the fruit into chunks to pack them into a blender or juicer. Fill the voids with water up about 2/3 full with water. The water helps liquify the melon and separate the juice from the pulpy flesh.

This is what the juiced product looks like.

Filter out the green juice with a fine strainer leaving behind the concentrated Bitter Melon juice. It is a beautiful green color.

The final product!

Shake well each time you add a few ounces to other sweeter fruit juice. Keep it refrigerated and it should last a couple of weeks. I have not been able to determine what a days dose should be for various health benefits. My Dad drinks a couple of ounces a day.

Don't forget to save the seeds. Dry them out for a couple of weeks on paper towels and then put them in a container for storage until late Spring. Good Luck! I think this beautiful plant holds a lot of promise.

Boy Scout Skills

2011-11-12T09:49:00.016-08:00

Scouting has been a formative experience in my life and the skills I have learned have helped shape me to be a capable person. Planning for campouts, camping, and leadership skills that I have learned in Scouting have served me in real life like nothing else could have prepared me. Thank you Boy Scouts of America. Thank you Greg Scott and all the great Scout Masters of all Great Scouts.

Primitive Cooking

Reflector Oven

How to choose a camp site

Primitive shelter construction

Winter Sleeping: How to stay warm

Sleeping bag liner

Canoe packing: How to keep your gear dry

1 match fire

Small fire cooking

Drinking water evaporation trap

Summerization July 1, 2011 Garden Photos

2011-07-10T10:02:00.035-07:00

We went on vacation the first week of July so prior to leaving we had to summerize our garden. (This is a good idea to do even if we did not go on vacation as it is always a good idea to reduce water and weeding needs). We purchased 6 bales of hay to mulch all of our garden rows to prevent the ground from drying out too fast and to reduce weed growth. Here are some photos of where we are with the garden as of July 1, 2011. A lot of our plants are really small as we had an exceptionally cool and wet spring.

View of the west half of our garden.

View of the east half of our garden.

View of the middle row and hoop house.

Our asparagus producing well for several months.

Asparagus and Okra.

Okra about to start blooming.

Bush beans don't produce as well as pole beans but don't require support.

Pole beans starting to bloom. The turnips below are flowering.

Pole beans starting to climb the hoop house.

Our cool season stuff inside the hoop house is starting to die out although the carrots, Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce, carrots and Oakleaf Lettuce are doing well.

Cabbage and Deer Tongue Lettuce.

Kale and Chard produce all summer long.

Cucumbers starting to flower.

Our grapes are looking good for early July. We are having big problems with Japanese Beetles.

We have grape vines above our berry bushes and strawberries all around our garden.

Good looking grapes! We have Concord, Norton and other varieties.

A volunteer Gourd growing amongst newly planted Blueberry bushes. The strawberries below are hard to see withthe new straw mulch.

Peppers, Asparagus and Cucumbers.

Asparagus, Cucumbers and Okra.

Garden view.

Tomatoes and Okra.

Peppers. They are small because they were all grown from seed and I got a late start with our cold wet spring.

Tomatoes and Peppers.

Tomatoes and Peppers. Our strawberries (behind) produced about 25 pounds of berries this spring.

Tomatoes starting to flower.

Tomatoes freshly mulched to lessen watering.

Tree house siding and roof

2011-04-17T20:14:00.018-07:00

The tree house is coming along. We have the windows installed and it is time to start on the siding and the roof. The roof really holds it all together and strengthens the walls.

Here is the tree house from below showing the walls and the newly installed windows.

A view of the windows from the inside. I got these windows from a Habitat for Humanity re-sale store for about $5 each.

Working on the tree house at night. I used steel clips to attach the 2"x4"x12' boards on their sides to the top plates of the walls.

The roof frame is 2"x4"x12' boards to support the 1/2" treated plywood sheets. I have a 3' overhang over the deck on front and a 1' overhang on the back.

Most of the siding is done with the exception of some corner trim and soffit work, but it is starting to look like a functional tree house. The kids are starting to use it for play.

Drip edge is installed prior to tar paper and shingles on the roof.

You will need help to get the heavy tar paper and shingles onto the roof. We fashioned a pulley system to a tree limb above to lift the materials to the roof.

Tar paper is laid down and nailed with roofing nails in an overlapping fashion starting at the low end of the roof working your way to the top, so that water can't get under the layer below the top layer.

The same goes for shingles. Starting at the low end you overlap up to the top, so that you cover up the nails of the shingle layer below. The shingles and the tar paper have lines on them to keep everything straight and to make sure you keep the appropriate amount of overlap.

Here is where we are today. I still need to finish corner trim, do some soffit work, insulate (if we decide to), install the wood stove and finish off the inside, but for now we have a functional tree house. Hopefully we will add solar panels soon, but for now we have an extension cord supplying light at night. I hope you have as much fun as I have had.

Click here to start at the concrete footings.

Click here to go to framing the walls.

Get on a Budget and get healthy

2010-11-27T12:07:00.002-08:00

There is nothing more old-fashioned or important to sustainable living than being on a budget (living within our means). My wife and I have struggled to get on a family budget for years now. We are not extravagant spenders, but we are typical Americans who like to eat out occasionally, buy our kids stuff, have decent cars, and vacation a couple of times a year. Our budgeting process has allowed us the opportunity to prioritize what is important to our family, as we allocate our limited funds. I won't discuss how to get on a budget as that has been written about by many more qualified people than me. I want to share all the additional benefits of being on a budget that have been a pleasant surprise for our family. At first it was a struggle to limit ourselves and control our spending urges, but with time, we realize that being on a budget is beneficial to us in many ways non-fiscal. Fiscal responsibility has led us to be more physically active, spend more time together as a family and limit our unhealthy habits.

Lord knows that staying out of the bars and consuming less alcohol is good for any marriage/family/liver. I will still do an occasional happy hour with friends, but the bartenders no longer know me by name. One thing that I need to figure out is how to get my friends to do healthy activities with me that do not involve sitting around drinking beer. Either that or I need to get some new friends that are also on a budget. I have never been a smoker, but I am amazed at how many people waste a huge chunk of change on cigarettes every day. How many smokers could save thousands of dollars a year by not smoking? Do I need to mention that this is also healthy for your body? I was buying three gas station sodas a day when my debit card was wielded freely. I was consuming about 1000 calories of sugar water and who knows what other chemicals. Even diet soda is a huge waste of money and has all kinds of chemicals and artificial sweeteners that can't be good for me. Now when I need a caffeine boost, I have iced tea.

A quick analysis of our spending clarified that we were spending too much on eating out. I would eat out nearly every day at work and our family would eat out several nights a week in the evenings. Now I bring my lunch to work. A couple of sandwiches, fruit and yogurt is so much better for me than a burger and fries. I have lost 10 pounds. Our family is way more healthy eating at home in the evenings. An additional benefit is time together as a family at the dinner table each night.

We were spending $60 a month on Satellite TV. That's $720 a year. That is just about the cost of the tree house I am building with my son. We have found the library again and it is still free. We read books instead of wasting time with a Nintendo or X-box. It is sad how many kids waste their lives playing video games when there is so much beauty out there to be explored.

Being on a budget has forced us to limit our consumption. Birthday presents are less expensive and fewer than pre-budget years. My wife is not a shopper (thank God), but our kids have gotten caught up in the Webkinz craze, and they have way more toys and clothes than they could ever use. It seems like our family used to spend our weekends shuffling stuff around our garage and/or storage room or picking up the house with all the clutter we used to buy for the kids. Now our home is manageable because we have less stuff. Extra stuff is a waste of time. Simplicity is not items to buy to organize your life, it is simply having less stuff.

When gas was over $3 per gallon, I tried to become a bicycle commuter. I really enjoyed the few times I biked to work and may try to become a regular bicycle commuter in the future, but the twenty mile round-trip was more than I can handle at this time, mostly due to time constraints and kids activities after school. For people who live closer to their work, I would highly recommend this healthy way of saving money. It makes you feel like a kid again.

Vacations are closer to home which helps us support the economy of our own state as opposed to a trip to Florida or Colorado. Less time in the car and more time hiking, canoeing, swimming and biking. When we do get back to Colorado we will be camping instead of staying in an expensive cabin. When in Colorado aren't you supposed to get closer to nature anyway?

Our mental health is better now that we know we are not adding to our overall debt and we are actually whittling away at it. I can't imagine how amazing it will feel to have a debt free family. Also, I am happy that we are teaching our kids about trade-offs, that they can't have everything they want, and I think they will grow up to be responsible adults with the teachable moments living on a budget provides.

When we first started our budget it became very apparent that we would not be able to entertain in the fashion most of our friends had become accustomed to. Nice bottles of wine, steak and cocktails are expensive. You really get to know who your true friends are when you host with chips, salsa and Bud Light. To be quite honest, I think a lot of people find it refreshing when one couple frees a group of friends from the high standard of expensive entertaining and our friends get together more often now that it is a low brow affair. Most people are in a similar financial situation, entertaining like they have more money than they actually do, and find it refreshing when someone has the courage to lower the standard. Who are we trying to impress anyway? These are supposed to be our friends.

I bet if you evaluate where you are spending your money, you will see that a lot of your money is being spent on items that are not good for you or your family. So take your kid on a bike ride or get familiar with a nearby State Park. It's free and it's healthy!

Harvesting grapes and making juice

2010-10-25T14:29:00.015-07:00

Some grapes are very difficult and require a lot of chemical applications in order to have a decent crop. If that is what you want and you don't mind dumping lots of chemicals on your plants, you can probably grow almost any kind of grape you want. My grapes are not beautiful, but they do not have any chemicals on them.

This was our first year of good grape production. Here they are in early summer.

I have several varieties of grapes. I am certain that I have Concords (and they are a good variety for beginners) and I have others that I have taken as cuttings from friends and farmers that are great producers as well.

Our first year of really plentiful grape production. I think the vines are about 4 years old (summer 2010).

In about a half hour we have a lot of fruit. In the field we use clippers to cut clusters off. We will later remove the stems and bad fruit.

Inside, under the sink, I remove the stems and any bad fruit. Bad fruit usually floats to the top and can be easily skimmed off to discard. The remaining fruit is used to make juice.

A big metal pot is used to cook the grapes. I place the clean grapes in the pot and add enough water to cover the fruit. I then boil them, reduce to a simmer, and mash them for about 15 minutes after boiling. Some people like to use a juicer to chop up the grapes prior to boiling. This helps, but is not necessary.

The mash is filtered through a strainer to make the juice. Some people like to filter the juice through cheese cloth, which removes all large particles and most of the color. We just refrigerate the juice and drink it fresh for several days. If you want to make wine or can the juice, follow the links below.

Upon completion, there is mash left over.

We filter this many times before discarding the mash.

Pick your own website

Making wine website

Pruning Blackberries

2010-10-25T14:17:00.011-07:00

Blackberries are one of the easiest berry bushes to get started and are a reliable producer for many years. The only maintenance required is pruning them back to a manageable size every year after harvesting the last berries in August. I have tried many varieties, but I have found no types that are superior to the thornless varieties in fruit quantity, taste and reliability. I wanted to see if the thorny types had better flavor or bigger fruit or any advantage that would justify having to deal with the nasty thorns and I have found no justification, so I have torn out all of my varieties except the thornless ones. I wish I knew what kind I have specifically, but with most of my fruit trees and berry bushes, I go out and talk to friends and farmers and take cuttings of plants that produce well with no chemicals, and often they do not know the variety. If you observe your own neighborhood or the country area around your city you will start to notice trees and berry bushes of all kinds that look kind of neglected (indicating that they are not sprayed with chemicals) yet they have good fruit output. These are the plants you want to choose for cuttings. Click here for info on taking cuttings.

Blackberries a couple of weeks from being ready to pick.

Ready to start harvesting. Blackberries produce for 2-4 weeks.

My thornless blackberries grow to be about 12' tall by the end of summer. Notice the 7' high hoop house in the background. I let them grow all summer and prune them back after harvest.

After harvest, I cut all the canes back to about 4' high and specifically remove all the canes that produced fruit this year to the ground. All brambles are different, but blackberries only produce fruit on canes that grew from the previous year so anything that had fruit on it this year will not have berries the next year.

It is easy to tell what canes had fruit, as you will see some of the unharvested seed heads on top of the canes. Cut all of these to the ground and get rid of them. They do not compost well so I burn them. The growth from this season will produce fruit next year. By cutting the shrubs back to 4' after harvest, the canes will have time to put out side shoots and grow to about 6' before fall, thus providing a thick mass of one year old growth that will produce fruit the next year. No home should be without blackberries. Good luck.

How to build a tree house - walls

2010-09-27T15:47:00.018-07:00

Here is the drawing I put together to build the walls from. Nothing fancy, but it helped me think about quantities of wood and how I would need to cut the 2x4's to allow for the sloped shed roof.

I built the walls on the ground in my driveway so that they would be square and flat. This is nearly impossible to do on rough ground. Make sure you buy your doors and windows prior to building the walls so that you can make your rough openings large enough for them. I got this solid wood door, two windows and door hardware at our local Habitat for Humanity re-sale store for $27.

We built one end wall with 7' tall 2x4's, the other end with full 8' 2x4's and sloped walls connecting in between. This allows for a shed roof with 1' of fall. Note the slope of the wall leaning against the truck. We tilted the walls up in the driveway to make sure they lined up before we carried them to the site on the back of the truck, hoisted them up one by one and nailed them together. I needed the help of two neighbors to get them to the site, and lift them up to the deck 10' off the ground. Up to this point, the deck and floor joists have all been screwed together, but the walls are just nailed together. The bottom board of each wall is treated lumber, but the vertical studs and top of the wall are not treated as they will be protected by a roof and siding eventually. Up to this point all floor joists, posts and deck boards have been treated lumber.

By having the windows and doors to measure, you can be sure to make your openings the correct width, so that they can be easily installed up in the tree house.

Here are the walls installed up on the deck. It is starting to look like a tree house.

Here you can see the tree house that is approximately 8' x 8' on the 8' x 12' deck so that there is a 4' x 8' deck outside the front door. The angled boards on the inside are used to make sure the walls are square and vertical. They will not be needed when the roof joists and siding are on the outside.

Click here for roofing when we get it done.

Click here to go back to supports and deck.

How to build a tree house - supports

2010-09-27T15:43:00.015-07:00

The next step is to install the 6" x 6" x 10' posts to build the upper levels on. You may need some help with this step as these posts can be very heavy. I used recycled posts that had already been in the ground as a retaining wall for 15 years so I did not want to direct bury them. This ought to keep them solid for at least another 20 years as they should not have direct contact with moisture and they can completely dry out after every rain. I screwed a heavy-duty plastic base on each post that has a hole for the rebar to go through in the middle. This elevates the post off of the concrete to further extend the life of the wood post. Some people choose to bury their posts in the ground with concrete around the posts. I did not want to lose the extra 3' of height and wanted to avoid the posts being in contact with constant moisture in the ground.

If you look closely you can see the plastic bases on top of the concrete footing. I used the future deck boards to hold the posts vertical as they were going up.

We built scaffolding levels as we worked our way up so that we had a safe place to work from. We used the future deck boards so that we were not having to buy extra lumber.

It took us two levels of scaffolding to get up to our 10' high deck level that the tree house will sit on.

The permanent floor joists are bolted in place with 10" x 3/8" bolts. Consult with your local hardware store to see what kind of finish is needed for the bolts with the kind of treated wood you have in your state. For ACQ wood you need galvanized bolts, washers and nuts.

As we build the deck level and the posts become more solidly locked together, the support boards below are removed and used for the upper deck.

The deck is almost finished and the upper deck is bolted to the tree in two locations for stability. We decided to build a lower level because it was such a cool space below the deck.

The deck is complete with 2' cantilever at each end for a total deck space of 8' x 12' Notice how we decided to add diagonal 2x4x10's to make sure the upper deck was solid as a rock. It was pretty safe before the diagonals, but I wanted to make sure that nothing would move once the house portion was added on top of the deck. The diagonals made a huge difference.

Quite a view from up here! 10' is really high. This represents about two weekends of work.

Click here for framing the walls.

Click here to return to the beginning.

How to build a tree house - concrete

2010-09-27T15:38:00.016-07:00

OK, what does a tree house have to do with sustainability? I am considering this to be a laboratory to teach my kids, ages 6-9, about solar power and energy use. If things go well, it will also be a house heated by wood and cooled by shade and wind. I hope it is a place where they will learn about solar panels, batteries, inverters and how much energy lights and fans use.

We dug the footing piers as close to safe frost depth as possible and about 12" wide. In central Missouri this is 36" deep. I used a post hole digger (shown above).

I tried my best to dig the piers 7'-6" on center so that 6"x6"x10' support posts with 8' boards around the outside would create an 8' x 8' square. This makes for an easy deck level with no cutting of lumber later. The stakes and string are used to measure things closely, keep things square and level the footing piers. Remenber A squared + B squared = C squared? Or a rectangle that is 3' x 4' x 5' will always form a 90 degree angle. This will help keep things square.

Using a level, I verified that the string line was level all the way around. Because the ground is not level, I could measure the same distance down from the string to the top of the concrete piers and make sure that all concrete is the same height.

Where the ground was lower, I used Sonotube to elevate the footing form to the height of the holes that were flush with the ground. A plastic tub and bags of concrete were used to mix the concrete in the woods.

We mixed the concrete by adding water from our hose until it was thoroughly wet, but not runny.

One of the pier footings flush with the ground, troweled smooth and a rebar set in the center. A hole drilled in the posts will secure them to the footing later. This is 18" rebar that is 1/2" thick (9" in the concrete and 9" above ground).

All the concrete poured to the top of the forms and/or flush with the ground as measured from the level string line down to the concrete uniformly.

Another view of the concrete in relation to the Oak tree. Our tree house is stand alone from the tree, but later on we will attach the deck level to the tree.

Next step is the support frame and deck (click here).

Other edible fruit and plants

2010-06-23T14:59:00.014-07:00

Gooseberries are my kids favorites and what other fruit is available in May and June? They are sour, but this native fruit is great in pies or just as a snack when we are out hiking.

That is a happy smile. My daughter loves gooseberries.

Another Missouri native is the Persimmon. A beautiful tree and a prolific producer of fruit. The fruit is not ready to eat until late fall, usually after frosts have begun. If you eat them too early, they will make your mouth pucker. We have used them in jam or eaten fresh.

A good harvest from a single tree.

In the late fall all the leaves have fallen and only the fruit remains.

I think the prettiest flower I have ever seen is the Passion Flower. It has so many layers of depth it almost looks artificial. This is a Missouri native vine that can be aggressive, but who cares if this beautiful flower is everywhere? To control it's spread, I do plant it along fence rows where I mow on both sides because it will sucker up 10' from the original plant. If you plant it on a garden fence or near a landscape bed, it can be a nuisance weed.

Here the fruit is developing. When it turns yellow you can peel it and suck the juice out of the inside. I am not sure what the relationship is to the passion fruit drinks you can get on tropical islands, but the taste is very similar. Kind of citrus, and very sweet.

Our native Redbud is a beautiful small tree with pretty heart shaped leaves and pink flowers in the spring. It does well in shade or sun and is very tough and adaptable to various soils.

The flowers are great to eat on salads or freshly grazed from the tree. The seed pods, when they are young and tender, can be eaten like snap peas or cooked with salt and butter.

Spring berries and fruit trees

2010-06-23T14:46:00.024-07:00

This has been a great spring for us. Most of our fruit trees are still young, but our berry bushes are producing very well. The following are some photos and comments on what is doing well and tidbits of what we have learned. We have had a lot of Japanese Beatles this year. I am trying to figure out a natural method of destroying the little devils other than physically removing and squishing them. Any ideas are welcome in the comments.

Sour bush cherries have beautiful spring flowers and produce lots of small, sour, red fruit that is well suited for pies or fresh eating if you don't mind the sour taste. So far this is doing well (3rd season) without any spraying and has been disease and insect free. Japanese Beatles don't seem to fancy them over the grapes, fruit trees or blackberries.

This is the first year our bush cherries have produced (3rd season in the ground). The fruit is small and sour, but seems disease and insect free thus far.

Our small developing nursery (inside our dog fence). This year (2010) we have some peaches, nectarines, and crabapples developing fruit.

Our grapes (mostly Concord) are doing well. They have all reached the top 6' wire and I am starting to train them and trimming (in Nov.) lower growth off. It is important to get them off the ground so that they have good air movement to discourage fungal disease.

Early spring with grapes and blackberries leafing out. Spring greens have been planted in the hoop house, but there is no need for shade clothe until mid-May when it gets hot.

Grape leaves healthy as can be before the Japanese Beatles start eating them.

Fruit starting to develop on the grape vines. Concords seem to be the most disease variety for mid-Missouri. We also have some seedless varieties, but they don't seem to be very vigorous or productive yet.

Blueberries in early spring.

There is nothing finer or prettier than blueberries. No house or garden should be without them. They are easy and productive if you have a little patience. They are disease and insect resistant, are beautiful plants and the fruit is super healthy. I often recommend to friends that all gardens should have blueberries, blackberries and strawberries. All are very hardy, productive and healthy for eating.

Blueberry flowers are a beautiful dainty white.

Developing fruit in May.

Fruit starting to turn blue. I can hardly wait.

Early spring strawberry flowers.

Strawberries are outstanding. They grow like weeds, but are a beautiful groundcover for any sunny area. They can take shade, but do not produce as well. I have tried many different varieties, but I would stay away from "ever-bearing" types as they bear very little and so it is difficult to process them as they fruit at different times and produce very little. It is nice to have a huge harvest for 3 weeks that we can pick, clean and freeze. Try to keep your beds less than 3' wide as it is hard to pick the berries on the inside without stepping on the outside plants to get to the inner berries.

These beds are a little wide and the edges need to be trimmed. The outer plants can be given away to friends.

Fruit staring to develop.

Beautiful ripe fruit.

Quite a harvest. We wash, cut off the bad parts and freeze the berries on baking sheets. After they freeze individually on sheets, we put them in freezer zip-locks until we can use them in smoothies or jam.

A perfect fruit.

Apples in bloom are beautiful. I am still experimenting to see what varieties I like best.

A beautiful apple blossom.

Potato preparation and planting

2010-05-05T13:34:00.015-07:00

Growing potatoes is a fun and easy activity and especially great to get kids involved with. It is so cool to see the eyes developing and cut up a single potato into 10 new chunks that will each become a potato plant that will grow several new potatoes.

These potatoes are a little over developed but with careful handling (not to damage the growth that has already occurred) they will make great new starts. Make sure that each chunk has at least one eye for roots and stems to sprout from.

We cut the potatoes into chunks, anywhere between 5-12 pieces per potato, and then spread them out on pans to dry a little.

The potato chunks need to harden off for two days in a cool dry place before planting.

Click here to see the trailer!

Throughout Spring I have been turning the soil over with a shovel to kill weeds and to mix the dirt with last years hay creating a good bed for the potatoes to grow.

Potatoes ready to plant after drying indoors for 2 days.

To plant the potato starts we just spread them out about 8" apart and covered them with just about 1/2" of dirt (enough to ensure good soil contact) and then covered them with 3-4" of hay. If you don't cover them with hay you would want to bury them about 2-3" deep.

The potatoes are in the middle wide row covered with fresh hay.

After we planted the potatoes we covered the bed with 3-4" of hay. This will keep the weeds down, keep animals from finding the potatoes and keep the moisture high while they are growing and lessen watering needs all year. Last year with 4" of hay I did not have to water our potatoes at all, and we had a great crop.

Our harvest from Fall 2009. It is so fun for the kids to see the fruits of their labor!

It is important to move your potatoes around from year to year so that you minimize the chance of disease. Also, you are not supposed to plant potatoes in a bed that had tomatoes the previous year as they both are affected by similar diseases.

Good Luck!

Early Spring Planting (and mulching).

2010-04-01T13:41:00.009-07:00

We have started our bed preparation and planted just about all of our cool season plants (mid to late March). We have planted onions (both seed and bulbs), garlic, cauliflower, broccoli, many types of lettuce, kale, chard, Brussel Sprouts, arugula, spinach, potatoes, beets, carrots, snap peas, turnips, etc. The soil was still cold below the surface so I did not place any mulch/straw over the surface so the sun could continue to heat the dark soil.

Half of our hoop house is planted!

Both sides of the hoop house are planted!

My daughter helping spread straw!

Some may think that we have this backward, but we are putting down straw in all of our aisles, not on the beds. We still need the sun to heat up our planting beds so we are putting down straw in all the places we walk to give us a better/dryer surface to work from, keep the rain from washing our soil away and keep the weeds away. When things start to dry out and all our cool season plants have sprouted, I will spread straw or grass clippings around them as well to keep the soil moisture in and prevent weed growth.

What a good helper!

Look at all that area I do not have to weed this spring!

Now we just sit back and wait for rain and seed germination.

A little bit of straw over the top of my strawberries in the Spring (late March).

I did spread a little bit of straw over the top of my strawberry beds so that the new shoots can grow over the straw. This will hopefully mean more of the fruit develop sitting on top of straw instead of having direct contact with soil that rots the outside of the berries.

Make your own Tomato Baskets

2010-03-23T13:03:00.015-07:00

My daughter picking tomatoes. Summer 08.

Tomato baskets are an important tool for any garden. We use tomato baskets for lots of vegetables, including cucumbers, beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos or even just young seedlings in our orchard that need to be protected until they are a little larger. These are made from 4' tall, 2" x 4"pattern, fence fabric that is cut into 3-4' sections that are then rolled into cylinders. You can buy the 14 gauge, galvanized, welded wire fence fabric in 50' or 100' sections. If you buy a 50' section, you can make about 14 tomato baskets. I expect my tomato baskets to last about 10 years each. If you go with a thicker steel (heavier gauge wire) they will last longer, but they are much harder to cut and bend into baskets, and the fence fabric costs a lot more. With 14 gauge wire you can easily cut them with a simple wire cutter or pliers that have a cutting area above the handle.

The stubs where the fence fabric is cut (to make 3-4' sections) are bent over to attach the two ends to make a cylinder.

The bottom is then cut off so that there are 4" prongs that will stick into the ground to stabilize the basket anchored into the ground.

These prongs stick into the soil to hold the basket in place.

Young beans and okra growing up with the support of tomato baskets to pretect them from critters as well as support them as they get taller. They also provide the structure for vining peas, beans and cucumbers to climb.

A young Pecan tree with a tomato basket protecting it from deer rubbing in the winter.

I also place these around young Blueberry and other berry bushes until they are large enough not to be trampled by kids or dogs. Tomato baskets are a very important part of gardening at our house.

In the off season these stack well for storage.

Grow your own Food!

2010-03-19T07:50:00.011-07:00

Edible Plants we Grow: Click on the links below for content!

Fruit Trees and Plant Propogation

Fruit Trees and Berries

Pruning Blackberries

Vegetable Gardens

Summer Garden

Nut Trees

Herbs

Indoor Tropicals

Other Edible Plants

Starting from Seeds

Composting

Pruning Trees: More on this later.

Pruning grapes: More on this later.

Food Preservation and Storage

2010-03-19T07:48:00.008-07:00

Click on the topics below for content.

Wild fermentation vegies

Canning: More on this later.

Sustainable Ideas and Projects

2010-03-19T07:39:00.007-07:00

Click on the links below for content!

Concept Plan for a Sustainable Home

DIY Hoop House

Solar dehydrators

Tomato Cages

Water Storage and Irrigation: More on this later.

Home Heating: More on this later.

Root Cellars

Tree House Just for fun!

Dividing Blackberries and Strawberries

2010-03-16T18:11:00.009-07:00

Last fall (2009) I had a bunch of blackberries that were spreading into areas that I did not want them. I have a lot of fiends who have commented on how they might want some so I pulled them out of the ground where they had rooted and put them in trash bags with moist peat moss to over winter the rooted divisions. I checked on them a couple of times over the winter and added water to them when they were dry. Even though they were kept in my dark garage and they were dormant they still needed to stay moist to remain viable this spring. I took them out the other day and set them in a puddle on a rainy day while I rounded up pots to pot them up.

Blackberries send out new arching branches that root when they touch the ground. They are one of the easiest plants to divide and plant elsewhere or give away to friends.

Moistening the roots in a puddle on a rainy Spring day in March.

Our compost area is simply an area on an old concrete barn slab that we have divided into two areas using concrete blocks. We alternate new and aged compost so that we always have an area that is ready to be used and one area that is ready to accept new yard, kitchen, and garden waste. This compost is not quite as broken down as I would like to pot up plants, but blackberries are so tough, I felt comfortable potting them directly into this compost as a soil medium.

Great worms in our compost.

Blackberries potted up and ready to give away or move to a new location after a month of growing.

These strawberries are growing into my aisles and need to be divided. They also can be easily dug up and either directly planted into new areas or potted up to give away.

Planting Peas and Garlic

2010-03-16T17:04:00.009-07:00

I am excited to get started planting peas, garlic, onions, and other cool season veggies, but first I have to clean up my bermed-up wide rows.

Wide rows full of weeds in March.

Wide rows weeded and ready for garlic and snap peas.

These weeds are going to the compost pile.

Our compost pile is divided into two areas, one new compost and one that is aged and ready for use. When the aged stuff is used up, I start over with the new garden weeds, kitchen and yard waste in it's spot and let the older stuff continue to break down. This compost area is merely concrete blocks dividing a portion of an old concrete slab up into two spaces.

Garlic cloves ready for Spring planting. I could have planted these in the fall and they would have gotten a head start, but it is still fine to plant garlic and onions in the early spring. These have already started to sprout so I have to be careful handling them and planting them.

Garlic ready to be planted.

Garlic spaced 6" apart and ready to be covered up with a little bit of soil.

We are experimenting with 5 different types of Snap Peas. I love Snap Peas and we are still experimenting with different varieties to see which ones do the best in our area and different times of year.

We use tomato cages for lots of vegetables, including cucumbers, beans and peas. This does not look like much, but I am excited to finally get some plants in the ground. Next we will plant onions, lettuce, spinach and carrots.

Indoor seed starting!

2010-02-17T07:26:00.004-08:00

I love February. I just pulled out my handy Clyde's Garden Planner and lined up the average last Spring frost date for central Missouri and it tells me that I need to start my Cabbage and Cauliflower seeds (and soon my Broccoli) indoors. I don't really like Cabbage or Cauliflower, but it is exciting to think about Spring, and my wife likes them.

HOW TO START SEEDS INDOORS VIDEO!

I am in the process of building a seed starting room/greenhouse under a part of my house that was left unfinished when we bought it. I had hoped to have it done in time to start my seeds there this spring as it is all set up with grow lights and heat pads that can be placed under trays, but we have had a ridiculously cold winter and I have been waiting for a day with temperatures above 45 degrees for 24 hours so that I can caulk my new windows. Usually we will have a spell of weather in late January or early February where we get a couple of days in the 50's or 60's, but this has been about the coldest Winter I can remember. Last winter I covered the walls with 6 mil plastic sheets to get a jump on Spring, but the plastic ripped all to shreds and so I am in the process of going with a more permanent solution. I bought some 4' x 5' double pain windows from the local Habitat for Humanity re-sale shop for $10 each. They allow light for the entire east side of the room. I also purchased a nice used double hung window ($10) to go next to the door so that if the room gets too hot in late Spring I can open a window for ventilation. This space has exterior walls from my house on two sides and a finished roof overhead so there is convective heat coming to it from 3 sides. If I can finish the new exterior walls it ought never freeze even without a heater. It is not ideal with only east sunlight, but supplemented with grow lights I can get a 2-3 month head start on Spring and even without grow lights I would get a good 30 day jump on Spring.

A view of my seed starting room (under construction) from outside.

Enough about my works in progress and back to starting seeds. I am going to utilize a west facing window in our bathroom for our seed growing. I like to use a combination of Perlite and peat moss. This is usually the composition of pre-mixed seed starting soil mixtures that you can also use. The Perlite provides a little bit of air for the developing roots without drying them out, and the acidity of the peat moss inhibits root rot problems. If you choose to go with a compost soil you create, it really should be baked in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes to kill all the harmful pathogens. This can be stinky work, so do it on a day when you can open windows, if possible, and not when company is coming over. If you are a beginner, just buy some Perlite and peat moss. This will get you going.
If you are re-using pots, it is a good idea to soak the old ones in a bath of water and chlorine, dunking them several times to make sure all surfaces are clean. I used to think this stuff was ridiculous, but having lost a lot of seeds to various fungal deaths (root rot), I can say from experience, it is worth it to either start with new pots and soil or sterilize the re-used products. When I first saw a greenhouse operation that looked like an operating room, I thought, "how silly, seeds don't have a sterile environment in nature." What I have learned is that when growing seeds indoors we don't give plants the natural sterilants of direct sunshine and wind drying that give them a better shot in nature. Also, in nature, most seeds don't survive and I want to have all mine survive. Another trick to preventing fungal problems with delicate seeds is to provide a fan in the room (not directly on the plants) to circulate the air. This will make the seedlings stronger and help dry out the soil surface where fungal problems usually occur. If you have ever had a healthy seed germinate then suddenly fall over and die, that is probably a fungal problem.

2"x2" pots

I usually fill the pots almost all the way to the top, allowing for a dusting of soil over the seeds after they are placed. I then place two seeds per pot, believing that if one is more vigorous I can either pinch off the weaker plant or separate them at a later date when they are more durable to handle. Some people like to grow tens, if not hundreds, in trays and then after germination transplant them into individual pots. This is very tedious, so if you have the space, I think the two per pot method works for most gardeners. Some well organized people will soak their larger seeds overnight before planting. I never know when I will be planting seeds that much in advance and it only makes your seeds germinate a couple of days earlier so I don't think it is necessary.

Good luck!