We’ve been shivering in the San Francisco Bay Area with an arctic express barreling through. I know it doesn’t mean much to folks living in the east, but believe me, it’s different out here. The thermometer dives much below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and we turn blue and stay shivering inside.
Our girls are no different. They’re hunkered down in their hives, in a shifting cluster that they keep between 64-90°F. When the weather’s cold and wet, we don’t see them.
The other day I was out checking on the girls in a little window between storms. The sun was out, and the thermometer read about 56°F. The bees were going crazy, flying all around! I could hear them buzzing from five feet away.
There was a fist-sized clump of bees on Betty. At first I thought. oh, great, all her other troubles, and now she’s getting robbed by other bees. But then I saw that many of the girls had something bright yellow-white (Propolis? Pollen? What’s blooming right now?) on their hind legs. They were all jockeying to get into the hive.
Veronica was also active, although fewer of her bees carried pollen.
Also, for the first time since this cold weather rolled in, I could smell that sweet eucalyptus scent of our bees. I couldn’t smell the formic acid in Veronica, though. That’s probably not good, since it needs higher temperatures to work. Darn.
Sadly, everyday there are lots of dead bees on the patio, some with the yellow stuff on their legs. We sweep nearly everyday, so these are new dead bees.
Posted by: By Sunset, December 23, 2008 in Team Bee
, Team Beer
, Team Cheese
, Team Chicken
, Team Garden
, Team Kitchen
, Team Olive
, Team Salt
, Team Vinegar
, Team Wine
One of our readers (and fellow beekeeper), Tina, suggested we do a beginning beekeeper gift guide. Thanks for the suggestion.
For the beginning beekeeper, our free Guide to Raising Honeybees Download OneBlock_Bee.pdf
has a list of materials, links to suppliers, and instructions on how to get started beekeeping. Did I mention it’s free?
We started our beekeeping adventure with Master Pollinator kits($299.50 each) from Dadant & Sons. Each kit includes almost everything a person would need to get started in beekeeping, except for bees.
These kits got us started, but beekeeping, like woodworking, offers ample opportunity for equipment acquisition.
Some things, like a Country Rubes bottom board($40), are essential to the health of the hive. It has a screened bottom for greater air circulation and a slot for a sticky board to make monitoring pest levels easier.
We’d love a frame perch($19) from Mann Lake Ltd. for holding heavy frames of honey. It would make the job of inspecting easier and keep the frames off the ground.
And the clothing...well, it’s not cocktail wear, but a beekeeper needs to be well dressed. We found that the bee suit set-up in the beginner kit needed some upgrades...
Well-made helmets fit better than cheap plastic helmets and are more comfortable to wear (and they last longer too). We like the vented helmets($14) from Mann Lake Ltd.
And we like the round tie-on veils($13) rather than zip-ons. Sure, bees can get inside the veil more easily, but when you’re in a hurry and just need to get out there and check the hives, it’s great to just tie on a veil rather than struggle into a clumsy suit and zip up your veil.
Gloves really need to fit. Too-big gloves are clumsy to work in and are a menace to the bees. Kimberley and I both wish for a pair of children sized gloves($19); our small hands swim in even the small adult size gloves.
We enjoy our subscription to the American Bee Journal(from $25 per year). And there’s always something worth reading in the opus The Hive and the Honey Bee, edited by Joe M. Graham, ($36) But First Lessons in Beekeeping, by Keith S. Delaplane ($9) is better for the beginner, with lots of photos. Both books are available from Dadant.
Posted by: By Sunset, December 22, 2008 in Team Beer
By Rick LaFrentz, Beerless leader
About a year ago I received the gift of a page a day calendar called 365 bottles of beer for the year. Everyday it features a different brewery from various countries throughout the world with detailed tasting notes on one of the featured breweries particular beers. Some days they have an item called a quaff quote or label lore with humorous sayings or pertinent information with respect to beer. Throughout this year I have collected some ditties that I hope will ferment a profound impact on your vision of brewing or at least put a smile on your face. Here they are. Enjoy.
In 1862, the U.S. Congress imposed a beer tax as a way of raising money to fight the Confederacy in the Civil War.—Hey, I think we’ve found a way to balance the budget. ------------------------------- In St. Louis, it is illegal to sit on a curb of any street and drink beer from a bucket. They don’t mess around in St. Louis. ------------------------------- English pubs used to bake a whistle into the rims of their beer mugs as a way for customers to order more beer, hence the phase, “wet your whistle” I always wondered where that phrase came from. --------------------------------- Beer was first sold in bottles in 1850 and first sold in cans in 1935. --------------------------------- A term coined by the Victorians, pub, an abbreviation of “public house” refers to an inn or tavern. They were often designed to replicate the convivial social setting of home. Before painted signs became commonplace, publican’s often posted a distinctive object such as a boot or crown outside their premises. ---------------------------------- The longest bar in the world is said to be 684 feet long and is located at the New Bulldog in Rock Island, Illinois. Belly up to the bar-everyone. ---------------------------------- It is illegal in Texas to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing. I’m glad I live in California. --------------------------------- The four basic ingredients in beer are water, hops malt and yeast. The exact role of yeast was unknown until 1876 when French researcher Louis Pasteur scientifically established its role in the fermentation process. --------------------------------- “There is more to life than beer alone, but beer makes those other things better.” Author Stephen Morris. ---------------------------------- German monk and brewer Benno Schari is said to have been the first to isolate the lager yeast, a breakthrough he accomplished in the early 19th century. God bless him.
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“The pub knows a lot, almost as much as the churches” Amen, brother. ---------------------------------- “Beer does not make itself properly by itself. It takes an element of mystery and of things that no one can understand.” This is a quote by my hero, Fritz Maytag. ---------------------------------- Ninkasi, the 3600B.C. Sumerian goddess of beer known as “the lady who fills the mouth” was portrayed as the giver and protector of beer and brewing. Until the Middle Ages, brewing was considered the exclusive domain of women, who were known as “brewsters.” That’s why I love women. --------------------------------- “It’s a fair wind that blew men to ale”. Washington Irving. --------------------------------- “If you can boil water, you can brew beer”. This is an old home brewing saying and with God as my witness, it’s true. --------------------------------- I will leave you with what is considered a timely toast by Lewis Henry. “Here’s to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer and another one.”
This is also a great time of year to introduce yourself to the many seasonal beers that are brewed all over the world and the best time of the year to drink them.
We've been feeding our vinegar for months now, however haphazardly, and bottling some of it straight out of the crocks for use in cooking (and of course for our first one-block feast, in August). A couple of days ago, Team Vinegar decided we ought to give pasteurizing a whirl. That way, we figured, we could age it and see whether that might soften the vinegar's delicious but powerful bite. (Most people, when sipping a tiny droplet of the stuff, start coughing.)
First step: Removing the many layers of mothers from the surface of each crock. (This is neater than just pouring the crock's contents into a cheesecloth-lined colander over a pot; the mothers slither out messily and fling dark red vinegar everywhere.)
Me hauling the mothers out with (well-washed) hands.
Then we let the mothers drain for a while in a colander, like so many slabs of juicy bologna. (We saved a couple of the thickest, healthiest ones to restart a fresh batch. Click here for a refresher on how to begin from scratch, with a mother, a bit of wine, and some water.) The rest of the vinegar, along with stray bits of mother, we poured into heavy pots to pasteurize.
Draining the mothers, above. Below, garden associate editor Julie Chai (foreground) and garden editor Kathy Brenzel strain vinegar into the pasteurizing pot.
Using an inexpensive candy thermometer to measure the heat, we took the vinegar up to 155° F, as recommended by Paula Wolfert, our vinegar consultant, and did our best to hold it there for 30 minutes. It took forever (okay, about 20 minutes) for the vinegar to heat up properly, and then it was all we could do to restrain it from rocketing up into full boil. We dashed madly from the electric stove (at left) to a gas one (below) for better heat control.
Meanwhile, we had a canning pot full of sterilized bottles at the ready (you can also try sterilizing them in a large, deep turkey roasting pan, as long as the water covers them by an inch when they're lying on their sides).
This jar lifter is the greatest thing ever invented for lifting hot, slippery glass. Don't even try this with tongs.
The rest was simple: Funnel the vinegar into the hot bottles and pop in a cork (leaving some headspace).
These bottles represents only a tiny portion of what we made. The rest is quietly aging. We're trying two different materials: clay (Paula's favorite, for the gentle way it breathes) and our open-topped French oak cask, which, if it lives up to its reputation, will impart lovely mellow flavor. We'll check on both in a few weeks to see how they're tasting.
In the meantime, we'll have plenty of tang in our holidays.
Last week I had the great pleasure of being invited to help teach a few classes of 1st graders all about bees!
My friend, Karen Gallion-Biggers (above right), is a volunteer teacher with the BUGS (Better Understanding Garden Science) program at Brittan Acres Elementary School in San Carlos, CA. The BUGS program mission is: To better understand nature, the relationships necessary for the growth of the plants and where plants fit into the cycle of life. This month’s session is BEES!
I came to the school all dressed in my suit and veil, much to the children’s delight. I brought with me a drone frame, super frame, and brood frame to show the different sizes. I also brought along a jar of Sunset honey, a piece of comb from the hive, a piece of our melted and filtered wax, and a tube of my lip balm. The children (and teachers!) got a kick out of seeing all the different products the bees can bring us.
Karen asked me a series of questions covering the basics of beekeeping; we passed around a few show-and-tell items and generally just had good fun interacting with the inquisitive 1st graders.
I’m glad I was able to do my part to spread the word about the importance of bees.
Last night was unbearable! My mom didn't want to hear about it, considering she was experiencing -8 degrees in Denver and we only fell to 39 (but that's so cold for us!).
Here are some photos of frosty lettuce, the morning after a frigid night.
This was nothing to worry about -- crops such as beets, carrots, lettuce, chard, and potatoes can withstand a light frost. Hardy, cool-season crops, such as cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi can even withstand a light freeze.
There is a widely repeated rumor that a cold snap can even make certain crops taste sweeter because of the sugar that's produced as a defense, but I am unable to verify this despite having asked a couple of expert farmers as well as Kathy Brenzel, senior garden editor at Sunset.
Warm-season crops (i.e. tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers, eggplant) don't fare so well in the cold. Sometimes only the upper or outer foliage are damaged in a light frost and the plant may still continue to produce. You can take preventative measures to extend the season for warm-season plants by keeping them well mulched and covered if you know a frost is on the way. Cover plants or rows with blankets, tarps or floating row covers.
I'm hoping you've finished all of your holiday shopping by now, but if you're like me and need a deadline to really get motivated, perhaps Team Wine's sleuthing can help get you to the finish line. We started with stocking-stuffers, then moved under the tree. In this final installment of our wine-loving gift guide, we present the splashiest gifts—ones that dance like sugar plums across our wildest dreams.
Act like a pro—put your wine in a barrel When our wines were fermenting, Team Wine used glass carboys and added oak chips for complexity because we didn’t have the budget for an oak barrel (they’re spendy—see below). But if you can afford not to compromise—or if you think that St. Nick will remember that you’ve been a really good boy or girl this year—read on.
French oak is considered to be the gold standard in barrels. E.C. Kraus, a reliable retailer of quality home winemaking goods, offers four sizes. There’s an impish 5-gallon barrel (that’s 26 bottles of wine) for about $330, all the way up to a mondo 28-gallon barrel (145 bottles! 12 cases of wine!) for about $775.
Staying true to our local theme and our Western roots, I looked into Oregon oak barrels too. Oregon Barrel Works of McMinnville, Oregon, has taken the art of French cooperage (barrel making) and applied it to local oak. The staves (long strips of wood) are hand-split, air-dried for a minimum of three years, hand-coopered, and slow-toasted. These beauties go for $645 … and they’re sold out at the moment, but OBW encourages inquiries about availability. Old World purists, note that the company also offers handmade barrels of imported oak from four different regions in France ($945 to $1,100 each).
Trick out your garage—turn it into a winemaking facility We’ve been reading about the WinePod “personal winery system” for about a year, and Sunset wine editor (and Team Wine leader) Sara Schneider and I even thought about trying one out at Sunset (alas, we couldn’t find the right spot for it in our ranch house). Before I elaborate on how much the owners of one of these space-age self-contained fermenters love theirs, you need to know that the WinePod is a splurge supreme: From $4,500 for the standard set-up to $6,350 for the Complete version, which includes the computerized stainless steel fermenter plus a choice of five grape varietals (frozen, so you can start your wine at any time of year), a French oak barrel (and you now know how much those cost), and all the accessories, including bottling materials. (Shipping? That’s $400 to $600 more.)
But oh the fun you could have. Just ask Paul and Paula Cooper (pictured above with their WinePod) of Marin County, California. They contacted us to rave about their experience (and they tout how good their wine is in this 45-second WinePod video), saying, “We sincerely believe you would be doing your readers a good turn by checking out the WinePod.”
So I emailed them for details. Here’s what I learned: The Coopers got their WinePod this past spring, and their first wine was a Cabernet from frozen Napa-sourced grapes (chosen as part of their Complete kit). The computerized fermenter’s software allowed them to choose their own adventures along the way, and it always kept the wine at a consistent temperature, like a professional tank system but on a much smaller scale.
How does their first Cab taste? Since they made it in their garage, Paul and Paula joke that the wine has “high notes of Lexus,” then give it some serious compliments: “We just finished bottling, and though young, we think it’s already as good as the premium wines in our collection. We must think so because we are bottling this for our daughter’s wedding next June.”
Next up for the Coopers: a Cab made from Robert Mondavi rootstock (yum!), as the two were original IPO shareholders in the Mondavi Winery. Paul and Paula only have two vines in their yard, so the grapes used to end up in homemade Cabernet ice cream. But the WinePod’s from-frozen-grapes option is going to allow them to freeze two years’ worth of harvest and “honor the man and honor the vines by making wine.”
If you’re interested in this set-up but gasp at the WinePod’s price tag, perhaps its new kid sister is a better fit: The smaller and lower-tech (no Brix monitor or temperature control) Garagiste sells for $2,000.
In mid-September, I picked our last few trombetta zucchini for the season and commemorated them in brine. I.e., I made pickles.
Zucchini don't usually make good pickles—they're too soft and mushy—but I had high hopes for the trombettas, because they're firm and crisp, like cucumbers.
And you know what? They make fantastic pickles. Snappy in texture and tart-sweet. I've been eating them with burgers, grilled steak, and pan-seared fish.
Trombetta Zucchini Pickles
MAKES about 4 cups TIME About 30 minutes
2 cups cider vinegar 1 cup sugar 1/2 tsp. turmeric 5 whole cloves 2 tsp. yellow mustard seeds 1 tsp. celery seed 1/4 tsp. ground ginger 1/2 tsp. red chile flakes 2 tsp. salt 1 onion, sliced into half-moons 1 lb. trombetta zucchini, cut into 1/4-in. slices
1. Put all ingredients except the onion and the zucchini in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a steady simmer; simmer your pickling liquid for 10 minutes, then return the heat to high and bring back to a boil. Add onion and cook 1 minute. Add zucchini, bring to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes, pressing slices down under the surface of the liquid with a spoon. Remove from heat and let cool. 2. Transfer pickle to 2 very clean pint jars. Pickle keeps, chilled, up to 4 months.
Let me know if you're in need of someone who meets that description. I think I can find her.
Help out a lefty
I just stumbled upon Felco's left-handed pruners. I had no idea that these were made! They would surely help alleviate the crazy blisters we lefties get from gripping tools not meant for our hands.
Stay fashionable while trudging through the rain or snow
Consider snagging someone a pair of rubber boots from Target this season. They are fashionable, functional, and affordable (I should know -- I have them!).
Daydream of spring
This is an obscure gift that will surely bring a good laugh to the special vegetable grower in your life. I once bought a membership to Wood Prairie Farm's Potato Sampler of the Month Club for a farm manager of mine. She loved it, as will your favorite gardener -- especially during the winter months when all we can do is daydream about what varieties to plant in the spring.
Team Wine is back with more ideas for wine-centric gifts. This past week, we presented our favorite stocking-stuffers. Here's what we think wine lovers will want to find under their tree. Coming soon: Splurges worthy of writing Santa about.
Get the party started with a wine-blending kit—and prolong the fun with a can of wine preserver At a party, I’ve always loved drinking some wine (who doesn’t?) and testing my palate by trying to ID its aromas with a bunch of friends and a wine bouquet kit. But last Christmas, I discovered the Fusebox, which takes the concept to the next level by letting you blend wine to your own satisfaction. I can’t imagine a better way to spend an evening with friends: 7 bottles (375 ml. each) of Napa-sourced wines: 2 Cabernet Sauvignons, 1 Merlot, 1 Petit Verdot, 1 Malbec, 1 Cabernet Franc + 1 “mystery wine” (a palate tester!). Plus pipettes for measuring out specific amounts of wine and a graduated cylinder for mixing them together. And, of course, there’s an aroma card to help you ID what blends well together. Buy a Fusebox for $120, two for $199 (until January 11).
If you have a half-bottle left at the end of your blending—or after any evening of sipping—make sure you have a bottle of wine preserver handy. It lays down a blanket of inert gas (typically nitrogen or a nitro blend) that keeps the oxygen in the headspace from touching the wine and spoiling it; I’ve found that it keeps a red wine tasting like you just opened it for up to a week. A $5 to $10 lighter-than-air bottle (seriously, it feels empty) of Private Preserve or Wine Life will save 120 bottles of wine—a total deal.
Get your friends to make you wine—give a wine kit All the basics are in this $105 wine kit—from a fermenter and airlock to corks and a corker. Just add a varietal grape juice (like this $74 Cabernet Sauvignon kit) and start saving your empty bottles to refill with your own wine. Warning: Winemaking is addictive.
Wrap up a pair of books for budding winemakers The Wine Maker’s Answer Bookponies up 384 pages of advice from WineMaker magazine’s “Wine Wizard” columnist, professional winemaker Alison Crowe. When we had a question along the way, this was a quick way to find a concise and helpful answer. It retails for $15, and it’s just over $10 at Amazon.
The Way to Make Wine: How to Craft Superb Table Wines at Home, by Sheridan Warrick, a home winemaker who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His book was our go-to guide as we made our own Syrah and Chardonnay this past year. Lists for $22; support your local bookseller, or grab a copy from Amazon for just under $15.
Join a wine club that pairs wines with recipes—ours! Every few weeks, Sunset wine editor (and Team Wine leader) Sara Schneider and a bunch of staffers get together to taste Sunsetrecipes alongside wines from around the West for the Sunset Select Wine Club. Then each month, subscribers get one red wine and one white—or two different reds—plus the matched recipes, tasting notes, and winery info. The regular monthly fee is $35, but your first month is $20 and includes an extra bottle of wine. Plus, members get invited to club events, like special wine tastings and tours, and are even offered taste tickets and a Sunset cellar tour at our annual Celebration Weekend open house (June 6–7, 2009). Subscribe—or give a gift membership.
Posted by: By Sunset, December 12, 2008 in Team Bee
By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator Kimberley spoke well when she said, "maybe we should be called Mitekeepers."
Our girls are afflicted with varroa mite, that vampire of the bee world. Varroa mites weaken the bees, kill brood, and pass along dreadful viruses. We've treated three times this year with Apiguard, and were dismayed to find that one week after our last Apiguard treatment, a powdered-sugar dust knocked off well over 63 mites from Veronica in 5 minutes. Randy Oliver recommends that you find no more than few mites fall in 5 minutes after sugar dusting.
Our mite counts are not good and we’re worried. In the mornings the cement pad is littered with dead bees. When the day warms enough for the bees to work, I often see them carrying dead sisters away from the hive. (They don't like to have dead bodies littering their living area, anymore than we would.)
All our beekeeper friends have warned us: take a more aggressive approach to help the girls or probably lose them all this winter. Monday we applied a formic acid pad (thanks to local beekeeper Thomas Kemp) to Veronica, our stronger hive.
We're not treating Betty with formic acid; she's is far too weak. The idea is to poison the mites, but not the bees. Kind of like chemotherapy. We don't think Betty could survive the treatment, but we're hoping Veronica can.
We were dismayed when we opened Veronica’s hive; what two weeks ago had been a top box boiling with bees was now deserted. This is worrying. However, as we watched, bees came up to see what was going on. That cheered us a bit. We're hoping that they were all down in the bottom box keeping queen and brood warm.
We quickly put the pad over the top bars and closed up the hive. Formic acid, while marketed as a "natural" mite control, is still pretty toxic; the precautions say to use chemical-resistant gloves, eye protection, and a respirator.
The formic acid stinks. Really stinks. Like vinegar, only stronger. It makes your eyes and throat burn, even from five feet away. I feel so sad for our girls.
As promised, Team Wine has come up with goodies for the wine lovers on your holiday list—no wineglass charms or bottle-toppers here. We’ll start with stocking-stuffers (today), work our way under your tree (this weekend), then offer up some splurges you’ll want to write Santa about (next week).
Take your wine's temperature This stainless steel band (above) with a thermal strip looks like a mood ring but works like a charm, slipping over a standard 750-ml. bottle and letting you know when it’s at the perfect serving temperature. The cuff lists a number of grape varietals and wine styles. It’s temporarily out of stock at Uncommon Goods (one of my favorite gift catalogs, and where I bought a few wine-temperature cuffs last Christmas), where it retails for $10. But Catching Fireflies has it for the same price.
Pop out the cork with an “Ah So”
This is my go-to “corkscrew.” Before getting to know this two-pronged puller, I was a habitual cork mangler. Never used one? Check out these photos or this video to see how easy it is to pull out even the remains of a split cork. Great for lefties too! Wineries sell ah so’s for $5–$7 (I got mine in Sonoma at Chateau St. Jean’s amazing wine shop), and so does Amazon.com; if that link’s store is sold out, just search Amazon for “cork puller.”
Gadget purists: Check out the original German Monopol Ah So. Made entirely of steel, it retails for $30.
Stop juggling with these wine clips No more awkward fumbling of plate in one hand and wineglass in the other, and fewer broken dishes. Nubby little rubber grips gently pinch onto a plate and provide a steady hold on your wineglass, freeing up a hand for refilling that plate and glass. An Amazon.com retailer is selling sets of 6 for $17.
Spray away stains with Wine Away Wine editor Sara Schneider spritzed this on a sweater that I’d inadvertantly tinged purple during a Syrah racking adventure. I thought the sweater was a goner, but this stuff is magical. Phosphate- and bleach-free, Wine Away gets its power from fruit and veggie extracts. And it’s made by a family company in Washington State. Buy a small bottle for about $8 at BevMo and quite a few grocery stores and wine shops. Sur La Table even carries a tuck-in-your-purse mini three-pack ($9), for the accident-prone who chance dining out.
Subscribe to WineMaker magazine On the one-year-and-counting quest of Sunset’sTeam Wine to make our own Syrah and Chardonnay, we’ve consulted WineMaker articles and advice columns many times. It’s the magazine for home winemakers—from working with kits to raising and crushing your own grapes to experimenting with fruit wine, WineMaker has that wannabe winemaker in your life covered. While you’re at their website, get a sneak peek of the magazine’s second-annual amateur winemaker conference (May ’09 in Napa), where attendees swap bottles and glean advice from pros. A one-year (six-issue) subscription is $25—roll up an issue and tie it with a bow.
The Victory Garden that turned a third of an acre of San Francisco's Civic Center into a productive vegetable garden for a summer and a fall is gone. Though I'm sad to see it go, I can excitedly report that the materials (soil, irrigation equipment, etc.) will be used to create a permanent garden in Mission Bay as part of Project Homeless Connect.
There was grass before the garden, and now there is a plaza of decomposed granite. This is the finished product on the last day of the garden deconstruction:
It looks a bit barren, but I believe this use of the land is a victory in and of itself. It's one patch of Civic Center that will no longer need fertilizer, year-round water, or constant re-sowing of sod to repair damage. There are whispers that outdoor furniture and vendors may find their way to part of the plaza, and the space will continue to host events, many of which help make San Francisco the town it is.
On a personal note, I had the incredible fortune of volunteering every Thursday, harvest day, for the past four months. We collected hundreds of pounds of organic produce each week for distribution by the San Francisco Food Bank. I can't believe we grew all that bok choi, winter squash, lettuce, and even tomatoes right across from City Hall. I met some of the most interesting people since moving to San Francisco during my weekly stints in the garden, including children of sharecroppers in the South, people that had victory gardens all over the country during WWII, garden experts, and curious bystanders.
I was also lucky enough to be there on the day photographer, Katie Standke, shot portraits:
I've been able to share my inspiration by creating our own mini-victory garden at Sunset, inspired by landscape architect, John Bela, and his brilliant use of rice straw wattles as malleable, compostable (and affordable) bed-edging. Learn more about the wattles, created by Earth Savers, here.
Victory gardens are making a comeback, and some are even aspiring to plant one on a certain White House lawn.
Remember when our cool-season crops were just babies?
They are growing up quite nicely and some are even ready for harvest.
Here is our 'Lacinato' kale, posing for its photo opportunity:
A great way to harvest crops such as kale, swiss chard, leaf lettuce, mustard, bok choi, and spinach is to pick the outer, oldest leaves. This allows the plant to keep growing and producing while you enjoy your harvest bit by bit.
Wait until your plant is happily established with leaves maturing and new leaves growing out from the middle. Peel an outer leaf off from the junction where it connects to the stem.
Try not to leave part of the leaf's stem attached as it can rot, inviting disease to your crop.
It usually peels off pretty easily leaving a minimal wound on the
plant.
Veronica is boiling with bees; two boxes chock-a-block full of bees, and a 3-inch-tall spacer box on top of the hive (the box gave us room to put in medication and a hive beetle trap—which did not trap many hive beetles). The bees built comb in the spacer box (it helps insulate the hive), and started filling it with nectar in November. What a mess!
Ok, so it wasn’t a mess until we opened the top of the hive and broke all the comb apart, spilling nectar everywhere. The new comb was well ordered and beautiful (especially to the bees). The poor girls began drinking up the nectar we spilled, and we had to brush them off the comb so that we could take it out of the hive.
Tragedy was inevitable. Bees were doused in honey, some drowning in sweetness. I fished a few bees out of the puddles of goo and placed them on the landing board; they were immediately surrounded by other bees who licked them clean.
We pulled quite a bit of comb filled with nectar out of Veronica. We'll freeze this and feed it back to them later in the winter.
We took off the spacer box, and cleaned her up. Since she’s still in a building mood and she’s honeybound (the frames are all filled with honey, and there’s no space for eggs or brood), we pulled two frames of honey from the center of the box. We replaced them with empty foundation. We’re hoping that they’ll build out comb and Queen Veronica will start laying eggs after the winter solstice.
Hive Betty, poor Betty, who has only 4 frames of bees in one brood box (she should have more), and not much honey stored for the winter, was the recipient of Veronica’s largesse. We don’t know if Betty is going to make it, but we’re going to do everything we can to help her.
Every year my husband and I get together with about 12 of our nearest and dearest to celebrate the holidays and eat a whole lot of old-school Italian food. For a long time we handed out gag gifts and other trinkets to one another—a Velveeta t-shirt here, a doggie chew toy in the shape of a politician there.
But then we got to thinking. What if we pooled our money, avoided the trinkets, and collectively gave to something worthwhile? We might actually be able to do a tiny bit of good in the world.
So last year we gave the gift of honey bees! Together we collected about $250, which buys 6 beautiful, buzzing hives through Heifer International, a non-profit dedicated to helping struggling families lift themselves out of poverty.
Bees help individuals in developing countries (ours went to Tanzania) by pollinating crops, and providing a steady stream of honey, wax, and pollen for food and income.
Cork. The final frontier for our Chardonnay (and, sometime in January, our equally beloved Syrah too).
Last week, I told you how Team Wine sterilized dozens and dozens of Burgundy-style bottles with bottle wash, stuck them on a spiky plastic tree to dry, then started a siphon and began filling those bottles with wine—click to see the full details and even videos of how we set up and started a siphon.
Or just skip ahead and watch the below video, in which Sunset’s managing editor, Team Wine member Alan Phinney, uses a spring-loaded bottling rod attached to a siphoning tube to fill a bottle with Chardonnay. Toward the end of the video, you’ll get a glimpse of our creaky old floor corker as Team Wine’s Sara Jamison loads it up with a sterilized cork and places a full bottle on its spring-loaded platform.
On the recommendation of the experts at our local winemaking shop, MoreWine in Los Altos, California, we switched our cork choice from “First” quality 1 3/4-inch-long #9 corks to “Grade 3” ($36 for 100 corks). Why the quality switch? Well, white wines don’t keep for decades, and therefore we don’t plan to try cellaring them. So there was no need to pay for higher-quality corks—if we can afford them, we’ll use them next month on our Syrah, whose inky, fruity, bacony yumminess we will cellar and lusciously savor for years.
The 1 3/4-inch length is one of the two standard options (the other being the slightly shorter 1 1/2-inch length) for a traditional 750-ml. bottle. We used #9 (a sizing guideline that refers to the cork’s diameter and its resiliency under compression) because it’s the best width for sealing a bottle with a floor corker. Here’s a handy chart (click that link, then scroll all the way down) that shows different cork sizes and their recommended uses (like a #8 if you’re using a hand corker, and a #7 if you’re bottling a split).
Our all-natural corks were punched from cork trees in Portugal. We didn’t choose plastic or “agglomerated” (bits of cork pressed together and bound with an epoxy). We got the good stuff.
But even though they’re natural, corks still need sterilizing before being put in contact with wine (which remains alive, even when bottled). So Sara J. and I prepped another sanitizing solution of water and potassium metabisulfite (the exact equation is in our free downloadable how-to guide) in a nonreactive stainless steel bowl. To keep the corks from bobbing up in this solution (and to keep us from having to constantly jab them down to ensure sterilization) we nestled a smaller nonreactive bowl on top of the bowl of corks, then only poked them every 5 minutes or so.
After 20 minutes of being dunked, the corks were ready for use. Instead of draining the solution and risking some bug or dust latching onto the corks as they dried, we left them bathing till we needed them, and we placed the bowl at the base of the corker for ease of access.
A floor corker is amazingly simple and complex at the same time. It’s physics and mechanics in action. You simply place a full bottle on the spring-loaded platform, place a sanitized cork in the jaws of the “compression chamber” or iris, then brace the corker with your foot (if it’s a rickety one like ours) and use your hands to pull down the handle. In one fluid motion, the cork gets squeezed on four sides and a metal rod comes down to plunge the compressed cork into the bottle. Check it out in the video below.
Once in a bottle, the cork has just enough room to expand in the bottle neck, creating a tight seal and keeping the wine in and oxygen out. Because any SO2 you added during the winemaking process is still bubbling out of the wine at this point, and because wine is a living thing that needs time to adjust to its new environment, you’ll want to place the bottles upright (cork side up) in the case for 24 to 48 hours. After the bottles de-gas and adapt, flip them upside down in the case or store them horizontally, either in a wine rack or simply by tilting a full case of bottles on its side—choose whichever method you’d like as long as it ensures that the wine is staying in contact with the cork (which could wither if you leave it hanging high and dry above the wine's slight headspace, which you’ll notice when a bottle is standing upright).
Now your bottles are ready to be labeled and shared with friends (or hoarded—you know who you are). But don’t drink them right away—beware bottle-shock.
I'll post details on how to label and the truth (it’s not a myth!) about bottle-shock soon. In the meantime, we’re gathering gift ideas for winemakers, wannabe winemakers, and wine fans in general. Cruise by next week to see what we unearth. And by all means, please leave your own ideas in our Comments section!
We took the little eggs, blew out their contents, carefully rinsed and dried the shells, and packed them in bubble wrap. There they sat, swaddled and invisible, for months. Finally I thought, What's the point of this when none of us can see them? So now they're on display.
The four brown eggs in front were laid yesterday. Who knew that eggs get bigger along with the hen?
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