Nearly all the information I found about growing sesame was intended for commercial growers, and even tracking down the seeds was a little bit of a challenge. I found them at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I got a variety called Afghani which don’t seem to be listed anymore. What little info I did find said that the seeds were tough to sprout, and to be careful not to let the soil crust over because the seedlings are not strong enough to break through.

My little sprouts came up easily enough, but the first problem I had was some kind of cut worm which took care of any thinning I might have needed to do… The remaining plants were quite nice, and they seem well suited to San Diego.  The first picture shows some of the blossoms and the 2nd shows the narrow plot of sesame plants – it was about 2′ by 8′.

Sesame has a fairly long growing season, 80-125 days to maturity, but it’s a fairly low maintenance crop. It grows quickly enough to shade out most weeds, and is happy with once-weekly watering. The second problem I had was lodging. If I ever grow this again, I’d spend more time setting some stakes and lines to keep it all upright. They seem to get a little top heavy with all the seedpods growing up the stalk.

By the end of October, I could really understand the whole  ‘open sesame’ thing. As the seedpods mature and dry out, they crack open and spill their seeds everywhere. Some of the plants were still blossoming, but some were already cracking open. I decided to harvest part of it, just by picking off the seedpods that were already dry. A few of the stalks had enough dry pods that I cut those out too. For the pods that were still green and wet, I used the high-tech dryer (put them in a paper bag in the back of the car.) They cracked open as they dried and spilled the seeds into the bag.

The seedpods have four lobes, each one containing a stacked row of seeds – picture a sleeve of Ritz crackers or a can of Pringles. As the pods dry, the end cracks and splays open, spilling out the whole sleeve of seeds. I sure didn’t count ’em, but I’d estimate that each pod contained about 100 seeds. Shaking the seeds out of the pods and knocking out the ones that are stuck is a little bit tedious, but they do come out pretty clean. The chaff can be blown out of the bowl easily while the seeds stay put.

The seeds that I harvested at the end of October weren’t mature yet, even though the pods were starting to open. The seeds were still all white and looked much like the ones you see on a burger bun. I harvested the rest a few weeks later – just before Thanksgiving, and those were a dark brown like the original seeds I had planted.

So would I do it again? Not sure yet, it depends on how we wind up using them and if we can really appreciate the flavor difference of homegrown.  We got about 100g of seeds from the little plot.

What about you? Have you ever grown sesame? Do you plant experimental test plots? If so, what have you incorporated into your regular gardening rotation?

I want to clean up the tree and that means restricting access to the ants.  After doing a few quick searches, I decided not to go with chemicals. I don’t want to be doing lots of spraying  – some say to apply every week or two until the tree is cleared of infestation. So the mechanical solution is tanglefoot, which seems to be pretty well named. It creates a sticky barrier that the ants are unable to cross.

I found a nice demo video called Organic Ant Control For Fruit Trees that showed how to use tanglefoot. He also did a nice job of explaining all the little details like which direction to wind your barrier wrap and why. The guy at the nursery said wax paper is also a good barrier.  The main points are to keep the tanglefoot off the trunk of tree and to use something that will not constrict the tree as it grows. Your barrier might last as much as a year before needing to be replaced.  I think the little tube of tanglefoot I got may last a lifetime. Just a dab ‘ll do ya.

After I got the stuff slathered on, I used a small paintbrush to flick off all the ants I could find before it started to rain. What do you do to control aphids and whitefly?

We have rain barrels to collect about 550 gallons, but what about the rest? Here are 5 ways to get started…

1) Watch this water harvesting presentation

Brad Lancaster gave a great speech at IPC10 in Jordan. His theme was Slow, Spread, and Sink the Water. If you’re a dryland dweller, it’s definitely worth 30 minutes of your time. He had some side by side photos of Tucson from long ago (before it was paved over) and today. He calculates that the annual rainfall that falls on Tuscon is greater than the municipal usage, but they have a ‘dehydration infrastructure’ – a paved system designed to move the water away as quickly as possible. He also presented much of what they’ve done to reverse that in his neighborhood.

2) Read Chapter 5 of Gaia’s Garden – Catching, Conserving and Using Water

It promotes the permaculture design principles of combining complementary techniques each of which is actually providing multiple benefits in the yard and garden. The one nugget that inspired me the most from this chapter was the explanation of how ‘sponge-like’ soil rich with humus and other organic matter is. The author, Toby Hemenway, had sterilized some rich potting soil by baking it in the oven. He had to rehydrate it. 3 quarts of soil held 1 quart of water. What does this mean for us? If we have 12 inches of rich top soil, the land can absorb and hold the first 3 inches of rain before any runoff begins. That’s a lot of water.

The basic components of the system described are:

• high organic matter content – holds moisture, adds fertility, stores nutrients, and boosts soil life
• deep mulching – slows evaporation, cools soil, adds fertility, boosts, soil life, and smothers weeds
• use water conserving plants – need less water and survive drought (he provides a nice long list of Mediterranean plants)
• dense plantings – shade the soil and smother weeds
• soil contouring – catches water and directs it where it’s needed

The chapter really goes into some great detail on harvesting and using both rainwater and gray water. There are discussions of bigger projects like building swales and backyard wetlands as well as smaller efforts like mulching and rain barrels. It’s definitely worth the read…

3) Aerate the compacted walking areas

I’m not likely to be digging swales (well, maybe back in the canyon), so how to capture as much water as possible in the yards -which, yes, are still grass lawns. I suppose that all the little holes created by aerating the lawn will act like micro-swales to collect the rain and help it sink and soak into the soil. We have a aerator similar to the one in this picture. It works well and is good if your yard is not huge. It is pretty good good exercise and maybe the neighborhood kids can be recruited to help…

4) Amend the soil with organic matter

Here in San Diego, the dump has free compost they make from all the greens they pick up. If your city has curbside greens recycling, they may offer a similar service. They offer various grades of compost based on how long it’s been cooking and what size screen they used to filter it. You can get compost which has been processed for 10 weeks and screened to 1/2 inch for free if you load it yourself, or $12 per cubic yard if you have them load it.

5) Mulch Heavily

The dump also has mulch – similar to the compost program, but the mulch is only processed for 2 weeks. It’s graded at 4 inches and it’s only $5 for a cubic yard. A cubic yard is about a small truck load, and it looks like a lot while it’s in the truck, but a yard of mulch will cover a 10′ by 10′ area to a depth of three inches. The mulch ideally should be 4-6 inches thick, so you can adjust your expected coverage accordingly.

The keys to all this are to create entry paths for the water to get into the soil with swales or by aerating well, build organic matter into the soil to hold the water once it soaks in, and then mulch heavily to prevent evaporation.

What methods do you use to hold water on your property and reduce your consumption of municipal water? Do you have any other tips to suggest? Please add them in the comments below.

Here’s my setup.  The fridge I used is a Frigidaire Model FRC445GB, and the full conversion instructions can be found at HomeBrewTalk.com  – jump to page 7 for the full instructions.  I’m not sure this exact model is still available, but if you look through the current postings, I sure you’ll find something similar.

The 3 main things to look for are:
1) a small compressor hump in the back because you need to be able to put your kegs in
2) no freezer, or a freezer compartment that doesn’t have the freon tubes entwined in the shelf. This is not so much of an issue if you go with a taller fridge, or 3 gallon kegs. Again, just be sure you have enough room to fit the kegs in.
3) no freon lines in the front if you’re using front taps, or top if you’re using a tower.  You just have to nick or kink one line to convert your fridge to trash.

One nice feature about this model is that all the ‘shelves’ on the door are actually bins which you’ll have to remove to get the kegs to fit in.  But then they make great see-through storage containers for all the little odds and ends of brewing like air locks, valve parts and miscellaneous chemicals and test strips.  Some people have hot-glued one of the small bins on the front of the fridge as a drip tray. I would opt for this classier version (as opposed to the towel on the floor) if ours was not in the basement.

To do the conversion, you’ll need a kit like this one from KegConnection  – 2 Faucet Refrigerator Conversion Keg Kit –  I’m pretty sure this is where I got mine from. You can add on the CO2 tank and a keg or two if you don’t find them locally. Don’t forget to check craigslist – there are often kegs and CO2 tanks there.  Also, Hydrobrew usually has kegs, and they always have replacement gaskets which you may want if you get a used keg. You can’t keep the pressure in the keg if the gaskets are shot, and sometimes the gaskets from sodas can impart a peculiar flavor or aroma to your beer – best to start with new gaskets.

And, related only in the sense that it makes brewing easier – here’s the faucet setup for the laundry sink.  It makes washing out the 7.5 gallon kettle much easier.

And the PVC keg and fermenter washer sprays high pressure jets of hot water into all the nooks and crannies.  Since I use BetterBottles instead of glass carboys, I’m reluctant to get in there with a scrub brush because I don’t want any scratches on the inside.

So I do a vigorous wash with PBW and then the high pressure rinse.  It’s pretty quick and easy, and so far it’s kept all the kegs and fermenters nice and clean.

And… maybe this will give you a little more inspiration… here’s the recipe for one of the beers on tap now:

Amarillo Pale Ale – 3 gallon batch

6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min)
1 whirlfloc (15 min)
Immersion Chiller if you’ve got one (15 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (5 min)
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min)

Heat 5 gallons water to 157F and add crushed grain to hit 152F mash temp.
Walk away for an hour.
Make sure the grain bag is not touching the kettle bottom as you heat to 170F mash out temp
Let sit (or stir if you’re so inclined) for 10 minutes
Remove the grain bag (suspend above kettle to drain).
Bring wort to boil and start 60 minute timer.
Add hops and whirlfloc (and chiller) per schedule.

Chill, aerate, and pitch your favorite ale yeast – I used US-05.

Beer Profile:
OG: 1.060 SG
FG: 1.012 SG
ABV: 6.26 %
IBU: 39.4
SRM: 10.2

We’re not quite ready for them to be completely free range because we still have basil, peppers, and chard going strong. So some kind of chicken tractor was in order.

The main issue with whatever I built was – where would we store it when it’s not being used, so the key to this design is that it folds flat. It’s still pretty long if we just collapse it, but if one side of the fencing is popped off (it’s only attached with zip ties) and the conduit is slipped out of the clips on the 2×4, then it’s only eight feet long and a few inches thick. It would be easy to tuck in along a wall somewhere.

The basic construction was fairly simple. Of course, every project seems to require the purchase of one new tool. In this case the new tool was a conduit bender.  (If you’re in the neighborhood and want to borrow this, please ask!)

The 5 conduit ribs were bent into shape and attached to a 2×4. This was my first experience bending conduit, and I can see that it’s quite an art if you really care about precision.  Fortunately, my beginner skills were good enough to get all the ribs bent into just about the same shape.

After they were attached to the wood, I covered the sides with some fencing I had left over from the raspberry project.  I just used zip ties to secure it – the main thing here is to keep the chickens in – not to keep predators out. The top is an old sheet – primarily for shade and to keep the girls from thinking that they can fly out.

The girls quite enjoyed their foray into the garden bed. Goldie, the Rhode Island Red, can really fling the dirt aside as she’s scratching around looking for bugs. The others are a little more mellow.

I can also envision covering the hoop house with row cover or some plastic to make one of the beds into a green house for winter salads and earlier starts for the spring plantings.

What about you – do your chickens range free in the garden? Do they eat everything in sight? Can you suggest any design improvements to the hoop house I built?

A friend recently offered up some seasoned oak from his property. (Thanks, Bill!) I thought, great – but I’d better get the wood I already have cut, split and stacked, before I go get more wood.  We don’t have very much storage around here for extra piles of wood.  The wood that was already piled in the driveway was from 2 places, both on our block.  Our next-door neighbor had ‘pruned’ his mature jacaranda tree last year and I salvaged as much as I could handle from that. We still had quite a bit piled up, seasoning. And then this year another neighbor across the street cut down a tree and offered some of the wood to us.

All that wood had been sitting there, waiting to be cut to size to fit in our little wood stove. The Jotul F-100 can accommodate wood up to 16 inches long, and I usually cut it a bit shorter than that.  I don’t want to remove a smoldering log that didn’t quite fit in, carry it across the living room and out the front door.  Better safe than sorry.

Although there’s something really appealing to me about the idea of splitting wood by swinging a big wedge, I’m pretty sure I would never do it often enough to get good at it. I’m more interested in chopping wood than my leg, so instead I use a smart splitter.  You can see it in this photo just to the left of the wood crib. It’s safe. I get my workout, and it gets the job done.  First, I use my alligator loppers to cut the wood to length, then I split it if it seems too big or too wet. I think it seasons faster and ignites better in smaller pieces.

It’s deeply satisfying to walk past the wood pile now – so tidy and ready to go.  Of course, recently we’ve had a Santa Ana blowing through with temps in the 80’s.  The fires will have to wait. Crunchy Chicken recently kicked off the Freeze Yer Buns Challenge 2011, so I guess I’m not the only one getting ready for the colder months. What are your plans for staying warm this winter?

Earlier this year I posted some pictures of the coop build. I didn’t really include much information about the process. Now that life with chickens has settled out of its newness, it seemed time to go back and fill in the gaps, and bring in a little more detail on how I planned and built the coop. I added a permanent set of pages on the site. You can get to them from the links below or from the ‘Urban Coop’ menu.

I’ve filled in details in these areas:

1. Research and Design
2. Site Prep and Foundation
3. Framing the Coop
4. Roofing and Siding
5. Doors, Windows and Ventilation
6. Enclosing the Run
7. Finishing Touches

If there are some areas that you think I’ve missed or skimped on, please let me know. I’m really interested in your comments and feedback.

I went out to say hi to the chickens yesterday after work. I’d been looking once or twice a day – since it seemed imminent based on their age and the redness of their combs and wattles.  I openened up the coop to refresh their water and noticed that the shavings in the nest boxes looked quite different.  Instead of being flat and level, they were strewn about and nestled down into a little bowl shape… and there in the box I saw our first egg!

I’m not sure which one is responsible… but we’re happy the eggs have started.  With 2 barred rocks (4 per week) and a rhode island red and black star (5 per week), we expect to get 18 eggs per week. Probably more than we can use, but I’m sure we’ll find friends and neighbors willing to take care of any overflow.  Anybody?

The first one was very tiny. Thought maybe it was a fart egg(scroll down to post #15 for a hilarious little story), but no – it did have a yolk.  We cracked it open today. We shared the tiny scrambled egg and it was really good. Very different from store bought.

Since we stored this egg overnight, we put it in an egg container – I said “Put it in point-end down.” And, of course, the next question was “why?” Well, because… that’s what I was taught. But the question lingered and here’s what I found:

Do you have chickens? How long did it take them to get into the full swing of things? We’re anxiously awaiting the next ones.

I got these seeds as a gift packet from Seeds of Change, but apparently, they’ve discontinued sales of this particular variety. I just did a quick search and they are still available through a few heirloom seed vendors. (Not very common, though – it’s been a while since something I googled had fewer than 25K hits.)

At 70,000 Scoville heat units (I’ve seen estimated SHU from 30K to 100K), this Bolivian chile is not one that I want to munch like candy, but a friend did and pronounced them ‘tasty – a little sweet, kinda fruity’. One review said that the flavor is ‘distinctly pineapple’.  Don’t know about that, but I do really like the heat.  I call it a clean burn.  They don’t fry your lips and tongue, but give you some heat in the chest.  You can still taste the food you’re eating and enjoy the complimentary heat.

Given the abundance of the plant, we have to share the wealth.  I’ve taken some into work and had the favor returned with some delicious salsa in the office kitchen.  We gave some to a neighbor and got back some outstanding infused oil. We used that oil in everything – well, maybe not everything… but it added so much to dishes from scrambled eggs (not ours yet) to pasta. Very nice kick.  So I went and asked for the recipe.  It may take a little experimentation or a demonstration to get the details right – he said he’s not even really sure how he makes it – it just happens.  But, to the best of his recollection, here’s how it goes (Thanks, Alan!):

Heat some EVOO – really hot
Turn off the heat and start adding the goodies:
Add the chopped fresh peppers – wait 5 minutes
Add some ground black pepper – wait 5 minutes
Add some salt
If you’re going to add garlic, add it a little later and go easy because it can overwhelm the rest of the flavors
Let it all cool
After it’s cooled down, strain it and put it in a jar to store it.

Use liberally and happily. What’s your favorite way to use hot peppers?

“If you buy what you don’t need, you steal from yourself.”  -Swedish proverb

I’m a frugal person of Swedish descent, so why did I feel compelled to spend the time and money buying and installing a drip system for the back 40?  I have a perfectly good hose I could use to move the water from the rain barrels to the plants…

The main reasons are laziness and efficiency.  I don’t want to waste water or time.  I have so little ‘free’ time on the weekends – I don’t want to spend much of it moving a hose from one plant to another and waiting as each one has its turn.  I had made a pvc ‘sprinkler’, which worked well enough for the bananas, but it sprayed out lots of water pretty fast and unevenly.  There was no way to control the watering, and it did not work well for the raspberries.

Benefits of Drip Systems

There are lots of benefits to using drip systems – they’re very efficient in delivering water to a specific plant’s roots, with less runoff and leeching, less evaporation while watering, less weed growth, and the plant’s leaves stay dry. They save time after the initial installation… The list goes on and on.

Using Captured Rainwater for Drip Irrigation

But – there are a couple problems with hooking up rain barrels to a drip system.  First, the water is not clean.  That’s fine for the plants, but not so fine for the drip emitters which can clog easily. Most drip emitters are also rated for a higher water pressure than gravity provides.  Even if you have enough pressure (you get 0.43 psi per foot of drop) to push the water through some emitters, they don’t provide an easy way to balance the system and really put the water where you want it.

I looked around a bit and found what I hope will be the ideal system.  It has an inline filter which will help keep the sediment out of the line. But it doesn’t depend on that alone.  The emitters are actually valves the can be opened fully to flush them out, and then dialed down to just a drip or trickle for each plant.  Using valves for emitters also lets you balance the system so the bananas (very thirsty) can have more water than the raspberries. Nice.

I bought my system from Drip Depot. They offer Standard (20 emitters), Deluxe (30 emitters) and Premium (50 emitters) gravity fed drip irrigation kits for dirty water. The kit did have some parts I didn’t need, but it was pretty easy to build my own kit based on the parts list. They also have a nice collection of videos so you can see how to assemble everything and how all the parts work.

They shipped quickly and all the parts were well packaged. They even included a couple of Tootsie Pops with their thank you card.  Kenny liked that idea – a lot. I installed it in about an hour, including cutting/positioning all the lines and staking in all the valve drippers. Then I turned it on and thought it would take quite a while to get it all balanced.  Happily, that only took about 10 minutes.

Next up – measure the level drop in the rain barrel for an hour of drip, approximate how much water is going to the plants and plan the watering schedule.  One nice part about running the system from the barrels is that even after the rainwater is long gone, you can fill the barrel with the right amount of water (from the hose) and then just let it run.  I don’t even have to remember to turn it off.  Great for lazy folks.