Upcycled Copper and Brass Rain Chain

The metal aisle at Goodwill has been one of my favorites in the past many months.  I've been collecting various "bric a brac", all of which is either copper or brass, to make a rain chain.

Rain chains, an alternative to the conventional downspout from a gutter, are a neat way of appreciating the otherwise unseen rain water that comes off your roof.  Prior to making this one, I shopped for and priced a few copper ones, all of which were beautiful but rather too pricey.  Since rain chains (at least the manufactured ones) are just an actual chain or series of bottomless "cups" that allow the water to trickle downward, it seemed like it would be an easy thing to construct.

My first rain chain I made for one of the smallest gutters on our house.  It drains a roof pitch that is about 10' x 15', and it collects a surprising amount of water.

The chain itself I cobbled together using old brass light fixture canopies, candle and incense holders, a brass ashtray, copper cups, brass bells, the center of a copper tray, a brass chain necklace and heavy gauge copper wire.

A cone, fashioned from the cut an hammered interior of a brass platter, forms the
 initial spout from the gutter.

Brass bell and ashtray.

Brass candle holder suspended from copper wire from and incense burner paired with a brass light canopy.

The chain drains water into a reclaimed wine barrel in which I cut a large round hole in the top of and placed a large brass platter.  Filled with beach glass to act as a filter and having several holes drilled in the bottom, the platter serves as a mosquito-proof cap to the barrel.

Note the seepage in spots around the base of barrel.  I kept this barrel too dry for too long.  These seeps slowly subsided and where helped with an application of tree pitch.

Finally, a place for my beach glass when I'm not using it for growing paperwhites.

Antique brass spigot plumbed in at base of barrel for access to the rain water.  

The barrel is also outfitted with a access spigot at the bottom and an overflow spigot at the top back (not pictured) that goes into a hose that leads to the downspout drain.  When I first set up the barrel and since it's May here in Oregon, I thought I'd have a little time to affix the overflow valve.  WRONG.  Just a few days of rain filled the entire barrel.  

I now have about 75 gallons of rain water.   So far it's been nice to use the spigot to fill up the watering cans or rinse off muddy hands before going indoors.  

I have three more barrels that I will eventually be hooking up.  The next one I'm think about setting up a small basin "foot bath" at the base to rinse off little feet after exiting the sandbox.  Fun stuff......

How to Control Cabbage Root Maggots (and other pests) without Pesticide

A cabbage, in it's natural, home-grown garden environment is truly a thing of beauty.  Unlike the neatly trimmed green orbs we find in the grocery store, in their natural garden state they more resemble a giant green rose.  Some can grow as much as 3' across.  They range in color from pale green to blue-purple.
Nutritious and versatile, both Western and Eastern cultures have grown cabbages for thousands of years.  I suppose I could blather all day about cabbages and their many cousins:  broccoli, kale, turnips, radish, cauliflower, kohlrabi and even arugula but what I really want to offer up here in this post is help for the home  grower.

Can you see the tree frog?.....  They love to hide in cabbages.

 Cabbages and most all brassicas are a host to many pests.  The worst of the lot (at least here on the West Coast) are Cabbage Root Fly Maggots and Cabbage Moths.  Though I learned a fair amount of gardening skill from my grandparents, one thing I no longer do is douse any of my plants with any sort of pesticide.  I don't even use bacillus thurengiensis, which is a natural bacteria that will kill caterpillars, but is indiscriminate and will kill ANY caterpillar--even those who pose no threat to your cabbages.

The most insidious pest I have encountered here in the Portland area is the Cabbage Root Fly Maggot.  These little red-eyed bastards will come along in the Spring and then again in the Fall to lay their eggs at the base of the stems of cabbages and other brassicas.  Though the adult flies themselves never take a single bite of the plant which they choose to lay eggs on, the tiny little oblong white eggs will hatch within days into little hungry maggots who will munch away at the roots of the host plant until there is nothing left.  When I first encountered a very bad infestation out on Sauvie Island, I was actually lifting wilted cabbage starts out of the ground that had absolutely no roots left.

The tiny eggs of a cabbage root fly, on my finger tip. 

Eggs, found where they were laid by the adult.  These will hatch in 2-3 days and burrow down to start eating first the fine rootlets and then the main stem.  Maggots will increase in size 20x or so from egg stage before entering pupae stage.

I recall my initial research of how to control cabbage root maggots was pretty dismal.  I think there was one, fairly benign pesticide which was supposed to work okay but I didn't use it (I no longer recall the name).  In one of my gardening books I found a description of how to use cut-out disks of tar paper that you would slit one side and slip it around the base of the stem of the plant to serve as a shield against the hatching maggots (which can't burrow through the tar paper). At first, the tar paper method sounded great but it didn't really work well for a couple of reasons.  First, we must have a particularly crafty strain of Cabbage Root Flys here around Portland, as I found fly eggs UNDER, not on top of the tar paper.  Some of the flies had actually crawled under the paper and deposited eggs on the soil, thus rendering the paper pretty much worthless as a shield.  Secondly, I found that the tar paper collars were restrictive for the cabbage plants, which didn't seem to grow as well with the collars around them.   I think it makes their roots too hot and dry.  So, after some thoughts on my own, I came up with an idea of covering the entire plant.

There are many kinds of crop covers such as Remay, and such out there that can achieve adequate protection for brassicas with the added bonus that it will protect them from ALL flying insects.  However, after trying them out I found them fussy and fiddly to deal with.  They wound slump in the rain, blow off in the wind and were generally a big pain in the ass to deal with when I needed to get under them for weeding and fertilizing.  They also had a tendency to get really HOT and if you have much experience with growing brassicas you will know that HOT is not your friend.

So, I came up with this idea--I took some screen door mesh, folded it this way and that and produced free standing "tents" that would not blow away in the wind, sag in the rain or retain heat.  An added bonus is that you can also reused them year after year.

Newly planted starts with covers.

Same plants, a few months later, covers removed.  These are now large enough to handle a few bugs.

Now, of course this method of covering the young brassica starts isn't as attractive as an uncovered garden with pretty rows of plants.  But, the nice thing is that by the time the starts grow large enough (and beautiful and pest-free) the cabbage root flys have usually dissipated with the warmer weather.  Also, a half grown cabbage can actually stand to endure a few lingering root maggots as the plants are now large enough with roots deep enough to withstand some chewing.

So, my fellow cabbage lovers......if you have happened upon my barely-read-by-anyone blog seeking help with your battle with root maggots, below is a basic "how to" for making covers.

1. Get yourself some metal screen mesh.  It needs to be metal so that it will hold it's shape.  Aluminum is okay but the old-timey steel mesh is the best.  It should be at least 36" wide.
2. Cut a length of screen to cover 3-6 plants.  I plant my cabbages about 18" apart, so if I want a "tent" for four then I need 72" plus another 20" so that the ends can be crimped together.  Also bear in  mind that the longer you make your tent the more difficult and unwieldy it will be to get it in position over your plants.
3. Fold the screen lengthwise into thirds.  Then lightly fold lengthwise in half (this forms the peak of the tent).
4. While folded in half, crimp together the ends of the tent.  I do this by folding 1/2" forward and then back on itself 3-4 times and then using pliers to crimp the fold solid.  If you're nor already wearing gloves at this point, I would now put them on.  The ends can also be sewn shut with wire.
5. To get the tent to stand up, you will first need to fold down last  3-4" of the ridge on either end. Then stand the tent up in position and work it this way and that until it stands open on it's own.

So, there it is.  A final tip for using your tent:  If your ground is lumpy or uneven and you have gaps under your tent, don't ignore them, as flies will find a way in.  Simply hill up a little dirt where needed.  

I've been using these covers for three or four years now.  I've since found that they also work well for covering beets and chard if you are troubled with leaf miners.  They also offer some protection from
slugs.  

Happy cabbages....

Tick Tock. Old Clock

It's been almost a year since my last entry.....

Shame on me.

Much has happened over the last year, but instead of boring my virtually nonexistent readers with a very long update, I'm going instead for a rather appropriate and quick entry about a mysterious old clock that doesn't work.

This clock hangs on the wall next to the pantry door in our newly remodeled kitchen (there, slipped in one update).  I've had it since about 1990.  Purchased from Star's Antique when it was still in NW Portland, I was first drawn to it by it's hand made, folk artsy appeal.  A rather big chunk of change at the time, I shelled out $110 for it.

Fast forward to now, it has traveled with me over the last 20 years from a rental house near Mt. Tabor, to an apartment of NE Sandy and then to my present house in North Portland.

Miss "L" stands on top of the microwave to show scale.

Made from solid oak and plywood.  The oak grain has a very dark stain that seems to be left over from being stripped of heavy black laquer such as one would find on a piano.  The pieces of the case have been hand cut and nailed together.  Even the numbers on the face have been carefully cut by hand.  The clock hands were snipped out from a piece of tin and the pendulum appears to have come from an older, professionally made grandfather clock.  Inside the case is a rusty old hand wound clock mechanism that maybe worked at one time, I don't know......To me, instead of a clock it is more like an art piece.

On the bottom of the little drawer at the bottom of the case, handwritten in blue ball point pen is, "C. G. Duncan Clockworks, Marshalltown Iowa.  This is the only clue I have as to it's story.  A google search led me nowhere and so it remains a mystery (until maybe, just maybe someone out there will read and be able to tell me).  I've always thought this clock has a look and vibe about it that it was made by someone in confinement.  Maybe a jail?  Maybe an institution?  Though it was obviously made with care, it also seems that the person had a lot of time on their hands and limited resources. 

So, there it hangs, in silence.  My intro into hopefully getting back into my blog.....Now that I've said that I HAVE to do it, right?

Morel Mushroom Score

Springtime isn't normally the time that I think much about wild mushroom foraging.  Though I've gathered Verpa Bohemica,  or what's known as false morels, the fact that Verpas aren't the "real deal" (though I've eaten them without incident) is fairly recent news to me.  Last Spring, through various internet sources I learned that Verpas,  which can be found a-plenty amongst cottonwoods along river banks around mid-late March, are not true morels.  Since then, my Spring mushrooming hopes had been dashed.....until this past Saturday. 

The lovelies pictured above are true morels.  While out at my brother's property, working on the garden, Todd discovered these growing on the verges of a big pile of bark mulch which he had delivered last year.  More brown/black than Verpas and with the biggest indicator, that being the stem and cap completely attached (verpa caps sit on top of the stem like a cup), these were clearly of the Morchella genus.  The spore obviously came in with the bark mulch.  So now, fingers crossed, they will continue to sprout in that spot and perhaps even in the other places around Todd's property where some of the mulch was spread.  I had heard that they can be found on Sauvie Island in May, but I still think they are rather hard to find if you pointedly go out foraging for them.  Definitely harder than the other mushrooms I've 

hunted.

The unexpected harvest, along with the usual-- fennel and purple broccoli.

I harvested about half a pound of morels from around the mulch and made a shallot and cream based sauce served over pasta for dinner last night.  SO GOOD.  My new favorite I think, next to lobster mushrooms.

The biggest one.

I love it's "gnome-like" personality.

Making Butter from Raw Jersey Cream

This morning I drove and hour through the rain to get to Kookoolan Farms in Yamhill to purchase four half gallons of fresh, raw Jersey milk for the purpose of making butter.

For what would seem like unfamiliar territory, butter making is actually not.  I grew up drinking raw milk from my grandparents Guernsey cow and eating butter made from the cream.  Though my grandmother had an electric butter churn, my mom still occasionally gave my brothers and I the task of making butter in a large mayonaise jar.  We would take turns shaking the jar, usually while watching cartoons after school.

Homemade butter, made from raw milk of pastured cows, to me is a very rare and precious thing in today's world.  Though it may look the same and perhaps taste similar to expensive butters like Kerry Gold, it is definitely a world apart from butter made from milk from conventionally run dairies.  Pasteurization, homogenization, additives....not to mention what the cows were fed--to me, factory farm milk is so far away from what nature intended milk to be that it's really not milk anymore.  But, I digress.  A raw milk blog entry needs to be a thing of it's own for another time.  On to butter making......

Step 1:

Look for the cream line.  This is what you want for butter.

Step 2:

Ladle of cream with a sterilized ladle into a sterilized jar.

I used a two quart canning jar.  Lid and ring sterilized as well.

Leave about a 1/2 or so of cream on top of the milk.  It will help it keep longer.

Let the cream come to room temperature.  Or, if you're in a hurry like I was, shake it for a few minutes under a stream of warm tap water to bring the temp up if it is still cold.

Ready to shake

Step 4:

Shake it. Back and forth.  Side to side.  Use both arms...or one arm.  Switch arms when you get tired.

Think about how toned your arms would look if you did this everyday.  The entire process should take about as long as an episode of "Dora The Explorer".  

After about 10 minutes or so curds of butter will start to form.  Though I did not take a picture of it, early on, very small, random white dots will start to stick to the inside of the jar.  That is the beginning of the butter.

Finished.

Step 5:

Drain off liquid and remove butter to a clean bowl.  

Step 6:  

Rinse the butter in the bowl under a gentle stream of COLD tap water.  The object here is to get to a point where there isn't hardly any milkiness to the water coming from the butter.  It should be nearly clear.  I did this by gently squishing and folding the butter.

Step 7:

Squeeze remaining water from butter.

(note the look of amazement from the scrubby holder frog)

At this point you can either salt the butter (which I did) or leave unsalted.  I believe it lasts a bit longer salted.  

That's it.  It will keep in the fridge a few days.  I froze about 1/3 of the batch, which yielded about 1 1/4 cups of butter from about a quart of cream.  

It tasted great!  I added just a tad too much salt, but it had that grassy, warm, complex flavor only found in pastured butter along with that extra special subtle flavor that only comes from raw milk.  A taste from my childhood.

I can't wait until later this Spring when the cows get more fresh grass.  The butter will then change from pale yellow to bright gold!

Up next, I am also at the moment culturing a cup of cream with piima starter for cultured butter and yogurt.  

Soil Block Update

Happy little three-week-old tomato starts,

growing away in their soil blocks.

It's been a month now since starting seeds in the soil blocks.  First with the brassica crops and then with the tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos and eggplants that followed a few weeks later.

So, I have to say that they work pretty well with a few minor flaws that required a bit of special treatment.  First and foremost, DON"T LET THE BLOCKS DRY OUT.  Otherwise you will end up with, not blocks, but dry little "bricks" of soil that water will run right off of.  Also, and related to the above, don't pack your blocks too tight.  Next time I think I will block the soil a little less firm.  The advantages of this (I hope) will be that they not only will accept water more readily but also  be easier for seeds to germinate and push up through.  In addition, next time I will also screen out the larger pieces of pumice in the soil mix.  Any piece of pumice, say, over 1/8" will create a major barrier, especially for small seeds, that will be very difficult for a seed to push around as they germinate.

Things I have so far appreciated about soil block, aside from not having to use pots or coco pellets, is that the soil mix actually has some nutrition for the seedlings.  "Coco peat" pellets, so far as I can tell, don't have much to offer in the way of fertilizer.  Also, even though the blocks have a tendency to dry out, at least you can pick up one and see all the surfaces (not just the top) thus it's easier to determine if it really needs water or not.  Last year, with the cow pot experiment, I would sometimes find the inside bone dry when I went to transplant.

Next year I might invest in a 4" blocker.  Woo hoo!

Roots emerge.  Almost ready for up-potting.

Soil Blocker......starting seeds without pots

Tronchuda cabbage, newly sprouted

So it's time once again to start brassica crops indoors.  Last year I experimented with making my own "cow pots".  Though initially the cow pots worked out quite well, I eventually found them to be problematic in that they seemed to draw too much moisture from the soil and also constricted root growth too much once the plants were mature.  So, this year I invested in a soil blocker.  It was a little spendy, around $30 from Johnny's Select Seeds.  This was the lowest price I could find.  I didn't manage to find anyone who sold them in Portland.

Below is a photo doc of my first go at making soil blocks.  

My helpers.

First step--mixing the soil.  This involved a trip to Concentrates, in Milwaukie.  Ingredients, from most to least included coco peat fiber, pumice, garden soil, compost, blood meal, dolomite, azomite, greensand and bone meal.  I got the recipe from pottingblocks.com.

After mixing is complete, you make a slurry and then start blocking.

Eqipment:  Bowl of water for rinsing blocker.  Tray for blocks pan of wet soil and an old cloth diaper for cleaning hands before handling the camera!

dip in blocker

Making a what I call a "dirt angel", by twisting blocker back and forth.  

Note that the soil in this pic is not as wet as the first.  This pic was taken on second attempt and drier soil, in my opinion, works better.  You lift and repeat your dirt angel, lifting and pressing in more soil,  about 3-4 times until water starts to ooze from top of blocker.  The trickiest part here is lifting the blocker up without the blocks slipping out.  This is why you don't want the soil too wet, as they won't stay in the molds.  I found that gently tilting the blocker and lifting just enough to "step" onto the next area of soil works best.  Also, patting down a smooth area before each pass is helpful.

 

Positioning.  About 1/8" spacing..... 

ta da !

Finished tray.

So you can see that there are nifty little built in holes for your seeds.  I think some folks just drop in the seed but I covered mine with a bit of fine soil.  Another useful tip is to use a finer grit of pumice or pearlite than is suggested on the website.  I found that for brassica seeds (cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc.), if they have a large pumice piece sitting on top of them then it will be difficult for them to sprout.  Next time I will sieve out the large pieces.

So there it is.  Soil blocks.  So far, so good and it's great to have eliminated yet another plastic (pots) item from my gardening.