Save cash and get in touch with your inner chef when you make simple, delicious vinaigrette salad dressings at home.

Michael’s Basic Vinaigrette

This recipe is pretty bare bones, but it has a delicious flavor that makes you wonder why you haven’t done it sooner.

This recipe yields about 1/2 cup, enough for 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 4 Tablespoons oil
• 6 teaspoons vinegar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon sweetener (honey, sugar, agave)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• a pinch of cayenne

Put everything into a jar and shake it until it is blended. I’d suggest that you put the lid on first, but whatever works. Alternatively you can mix everything with a wire whisk in a bowl.

Michael’s Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette

Here’s my version of the most popular vinaigrette dressing.

This recipe yields about 1/2 cup, enough for 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon sugar (or agave nectar or honey)
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Note that when you store this dressing in the refrigerator, some separation of the oil is going to happen and the olive oil will solidify to some degree. All you need to do is let the dressing come back to room temperature and give it a thorough shake and it will be even better than Day 1!

Most vinaigrettes that do not use fresh herbs will keep in the fridge for about 3 weeks.

Winter sowing is one of those ideas that you hear and though you hadn’t considered it before, you wonder why because it just makes sense. Exactly as you might imagine based on the name, it is the act of sowing seeds outdoors in the winter.

The idea makes a lot of sense because it works similarly to a tiny greenhouse; you add soil and seeds to a container, cover the container (allowing for ventilation) and place it outdoors in a sunny location.

I have been thinking a lot in the past few months about my posting back in September (“Have We Made Gardening Too Complicated?” – 9/26/11) and how Ruth Stout’s methods were so simple and uncluttered. That thinking made me decide to fully embrace the concept of winter sowing this year for the first time. The beauty of winter sowing is that it works even if there is snow on the ground and it serves two great purposes for the plant-happy gardener:

1. You save space by not having to find room for seed starting trays.
2. You save time by not having to harden off your plants before transplanting.

Above you see the first winter sowing container we will be using this year. It is a 2-liter soda bottle that has been cut open leaving about 2” around the base. I used a knife to puncture several drainage holes around the base before filling it with soil and giving it a good soak.  Next I added 7 Aunt Ruby’s German Green tomato seeds and took the container outdoors.

In the photo to the left you can see the 2-liter soda bottle planted and soaking up some sun outside. In the time it took me to move the bottle outdoors and go inside for my camera to take these photos, the condensation had already begun to form in the bottle.

You will also notice that the cap has been removed. This is absolutely necessary when winter sowing in bottles in order to allow for adequate ventilation. You wouldn’t think that it would get too warm inside a winter sowing container considering it is winter and all, but the truth is that it can get pretty darned hot and you don’t want to cook your seedlings.

In this case I did not use anything to secure the top and bottom of the bottle together, but when I move on to the milk jugs you see in the first photo, I will follow the advice of winter sowers who have done this many times before and use tape to secure the pieces together so that they don’t lose too much moisture and they aren’t blown off by wind.

I’m looking forward to winter sowing lettuce and the first hand-germinated dandelions as well.  With all of the jugs and bottles we have saved up, who knows what all I might come up with.

Do you winter sow? Tell us about it!

Even among garden authorities, there are commonly-held misconceptions about coffee grounds and their use in the garden, but their origins are easily understood.  Coffee is an acidic drink, so it makes sense that the coffee grounds would likewise be acidic.

Only it isn’t true.

In fact, coffee grounds are generally close to pH neutral (between 6.5 and 6.8).  As it turns out, the acid that is contained in coffee is water-soluble, so the acid is essentially washed out of the grounds when coffee is made, which is why you need an acid reducer but your coffee grounds don’t.

Coffee grounds are still an excellent addition to your gardening routines. By volume they are about 2% nitrogen and they are noted as a good source of nitrogen for composting, given that they have the same basic carbon to nitrogen ratio as manure (20:1). The addition of coffee grounds to compost helps to raise and maintain a higher temperature in the compost pile for a longer period of time, which aids in killing pathogens that may be present.

Contrary to what some garden experts say, you might want to resist the urge to add the grounds directly to your garden though, unless you are using a nitrogen-rich fertilizer as well. In short, you can add coffee grounds to your compost to increase the nitrogen content, but when adding grounds directly to the soil, a nitrogen-rich fertilizer must also be added. This is because the grounds encourage microbial growth in the soil, and those tiny microbes are nitrogen-hungry wee beasties that will deplete the existing nitrogen.

Here’s what you need to know:  The truth is that many experts have been mistaken for years about the use of coffee grounds in the garden. Coffee grounds are not terribly acidic and they are not a good direct soil additive without additional fertilizers. Coffee grounds are however a great addition to compost, where their nitrogen content can be fully realized and used.

So by all means, save and use your coffee grounds, but do so with the benefit of science behind you. Talk to local coffee shops and ask about collecting some of their spent grounds for your use. Your compost will love it and so will your garden – eventually.

EDIT: I wanted to add a link to this story in which the author created compost using nothing more than coffee grounds and shredded newspaper. The chemical analysis of the finished product might surprise you.

Source:
Oregon State University Extension Service, “Coffee Grounds and Composting” [PDF]

Home canning is enjoying a well-deserved resurgence in recent years, and that leaves a lot of people looking for information on how to can and preserve food at home.

While there are foods that can be canned using the fairly basic water bath method, when it comes to recipes that contain low acid foods, meat, fish and poultry, pressure canning is a must. Unfortunately many of us (myself included) have either heard or experienced horror stories firsthand that involve pressure cooking, leaving us unnecessarily fearful of using a pressure cooker to preserve food.

A few days ago through my Facebook page I came across a link from the Canning Granny group that was the simplest and most basic recipe for home canned chicken and vegetable soup I’d ever seen. As we had not yet canned any soup this year I wanted to seize the opportunity to give it a shot and show My Earth Garden readers just how simple it really is to can chicken soup at home.

The Recipe

The recipe can be found here. As you will note it is a very basic and no nonsense framework-type recipe typical of what my own granny would have done. It suggests amounts, leaves off seasonings entirely and allows plenty of wiggle room for adjusting the types of vegetables you want. Just a few base ingredients are a platform for creating a chicken and vegetable soup that is perfectly-tailored to your taste.

In the photo above you can see the ingredients for our soup ready to be canned. Clockwise from top right: pre-cooked chicken, frozen sweet peas, frozen green beans, frozen whole kernel corn, diced carrots, diced potatoes and chicken broth (center). Not pictured: diced onion. We added peas to the original recipe for personal taste. I also added a bit of salt and black pepper to each jar.

Here you see all of the ingredients layered in pint jars. The next step was to fill the jars with warm chicken broth, wipe the rims clean, then put on lids and rings.

Per the instructions, we processed the pints in a pressure canner at 10 lbs. of pressure for 70 minutes.

After 70 minutes, we turn off the heat and allow the pressure to reduce on its own before removing the canned soup to a cooling rack.

Here you see the finished jars as they cool, a process that will take quite a while considering the high heat and pressure they have been under.

Aside from the satisfaction of knowing every ingredient that goes into your food, canning chicken soup into pint jars like this makes perfect sense from a convenience standpoint as well. A quick meal is as easy as opening a jar and reheating on the stove or in the microwave, making it a great option for taking your lunch to work.

Because we didn’t prepare this recipe when our gardens were in full harvest, we had to purchase some of the veggies frozen. Still, the total ended up being about $10 for 15 pints of homemade soup. The cost will be far less when we raise our own chickens and use fresh vegetables from the garden.

I should mention that each pint contains 1.5 ounces of chicken which is easily more than you would find in most any commercially produced soup. You try finding such a high quality chicken and vegetable soup without additives and preservatives for $.67 a serving.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for lunch.

Special thanks to Pamela at Canning Granny for the recipe.

While reading last night I happened upon a quote that filled me with such utter joy, I wanted to share it with MEG readers.

"When you think of me, you must think of me as one who is truly happy. It is true, I want a great many things I haven’t got,but I don’t want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine. I have my home among the blue mountains, my health, well-formed children, my clean, honest husband, my kind, gentle milk cows, my garden which I make myself. I have loads and loads of flowers which I tend myself.

There are lots of chickens, turkeys, and pigs which are my own special care. I have some slow old gentle horses and an old wagon. I can load up the kiddies and go where I please any time. I have the best, kindest neighbors and I have my dear absent friends. Do you wonder I am so happy? When I think of it all, I wonder how I can crowd all my joy into one short life."

from Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

I think it’s high time that we gave something away on My Earth Garden, don’t you? While trying to come up with a perfect item, I received two copies of my friend Chris McLaughlin’s new book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Small-Space Gardening. Before you say it, no I was not the inspiration.

Even though it is a fantastic book, I clearly don’t need two copies, so the time has come to give one to you. Okay, not all of you.  One of you. Don’t be greedy.

Everything you need to know about this sweepstakes can be found below.

What’s the prize?
One copy of the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Small-Space Gardening by Chris McLaughlin.
MSRP: $19.95

How do I enter?
To enter, leave a comment on this blog post. A valid email address is required for notification of the winner.

Who can enter and how often?
No purchase necessary. This sweepstakes is open to entrants in the United States aged 18 and above. One entry per person, all duplicate entries will be voided.

What is the deadline for entries?
The deadline for sweepstakes entries is Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 11:59pm CST.

How and when will the winner be chosen?
The winner will be selected at random via random.org from all eligible entries and announced on The Garden Rockstar Facebook page on Friday, February 10, 2012. The winner will also be notified by email. The winner will have 24 hours to respond to the notification email with their full name and mailing address, otherwise a second winner will be selected by the same method.

A few days ago I was sent a link to a BCC documentary that I’d not heard of before. It was a social and anthropological experiment carried out in the late 1970s in England and by all accounts it may well be the first “reality show”. In it, the participants (6 couples and three children) were asked to spend 13 months living life as though they were in the Iron Age. Thanks to the Internet Age, the entire documentary can now be viewed online via YouTube.

I was fascinated by this experiment and have often wondered what it might be like to recreate a similar one, albeit from a different era. What would it be like to live life for a year like our ancestors did before they had power, plumbing or running water? Could we survive living as pioneers, like they did in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books? Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to find out. Yes, I’m just crazy enough to try it.

Please set aside some time to watch this documentary. It is broken into six parts, with each segment lasting about 10 minutes.

Fair Warning: While this documentary does contain incidental nudity, there is nothing of a sexual nature in it whatsoever.

Chances are good that you have never heard the term wattle, but if you are a naturalist, a would-be homesteader or you just like finding ways to improve your property without spending a lot of money doing it, you owe it to yourself to read on.

Merriam-Webster defines wattle as “a fabrication of poles interwoven with slender branches” and refers to its former use as a building material. The fact that it is not in more common use today explains why wattle fencing is not more widely known, but among survivalists and homesteaders, the wattle process is alive and well.

Another term that is closely connected to the centuries-old use of wattle is hurdle. While you no doubt immediately conjure images of an Olympic runner, in this case a hurdle is a fence panel that was traditionally crafted from willow or hazel and used to corral livestock. Wattle refers not only to the process (as defined above) but also to the material used in the process.

Because there are so many applications and variations of wattle use, I’ll be writing about this across several blog posts. In this post I show how I am using wattle fencing and edging to control erosion.

Using Wattle to Control Erosion

I’ve mentioned before that the property is situated on a strong slope and as a result there have been decades of erosion issues. I made a short video last spring showing one of the methods we are using to solve the erosion problem, but because of the extent of the problem and the different areas and microclimates involved, we needed additional options. Enter wattling.

There are plenty of vines, small trees and felled limbs here, not to mention the particularly annoying and aggressively invasive Chinese privet.  All of these are perfectly well-suited for use in wattle fencing and edging. In this photo above, you see the first stages of one side of a small wattle fence panel that I am building along the driveway to deal with a severe water runoff issue.

To give you a better idea of scale, the posts that you see are only 18 inches high, and the entire segment measures about 3 feet wide. I use invasive vines and  flexible saplings to  weave through the posts to create a natural silt and debris fence.  This is one small example of how wattling works for erosion control.

This photo shows the same waddling as above from the other side. Here you can see the severe water runoff crossing the driveway and into a drainage ditch beyond. The overall plan is to incorporate several wattle gates along the runoff course to break the hard flow of the water as well as to act as a natural silt fence. In the higher wattles, I will incorporate vine and smaller flexible branches to make a finer weave and stop more silt. In addition, this entire side of driveway will have wattle edging for both aesthetic and practical purposes.

In the photo below you see another section of wattling. This time we are on the other side of the driveway and I am building a protective surround for the opening to the runoff ditch. The neighbor had it lined with rock so it looks nice, but I want to make it look more natural with plants that will make use of the wet environment. Here the posts that have been driven in the ground on a slight curve beginning at the driveway and moving out toward an oleander shrub. There will be another similarly curved section on the other side of the ditch as well, allowing for added protection for this unique microclimate.

I will share more about wattle soon, including my first attempt at constructing wattle hurdles as fence panels the way our ancestors did.

Amidst the tidings of comfort and joy being spread this week, 13 year old student Mason Carter took his own life after reported bullying at school. While we were busy decking the halls, a 26 year old butcher was murdered by a coworker at the grocery store where they worked. These aren’t national headlines, they are from my local newscast just this morning.

I’ve read the Bible and studied it in depth, but I’m not a Christian. Still, I can’t help but to wonder what the Jesus I read about would do in today’s society at the time of year that is set aside to celebrate his birth. John 11:35 comes to mind.

I’d like to say that I don’t have a problem with the so-called holiday spirit, but that wouldn’t be accurate or truthful. I have a deeply-rooted problem with the over-commercialized  and dollar driven parade of stuff that the holiday season has become. I have a problem with a society that starts Christmas marketing campaigns in September when new census data shows that nearly 1 in 2 people in this country are classified as poor or low-income.

Maybe it’s just the way I’m wired, but I don’t think that anyone should wait for a holiday to want to help others and generally be good to each other. I don’t need Thanksgiving to remind me of what I am thankful for and I don’t need Christmas to remind me to do unto others. Those values are part of my daily life.

If you are Christian, I encourage you to rethink Christmas this year. If Jesus is your motivation to celebrate at this time of year, why not celebrate by doing things the way he might have done them.  I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t include going into debt to give extravagant gifts, but it just might involve giving to those who truly need it.  And while we’re on that subject, instead of serving food in a soup kitchen at the holidays (like everyone else will do), try making a pact with your family or friends to volunteer your time once a month throughout the year, or committing a few dollars each month to support an organization that helps those who need it.

If you want to give someone a real gift, show them how much you love them every day. I’m pretty sure that’s what Jesus would do.

During the food stamp challenge we used every money-saving trick in the book. Here’s one that you can use to get free produce right now!

Way back on Day 7 of the Food Stamp Challenge I mentioned that we got some free organic carrots thanks to a great coupon find. A reader mentioned that deal again this morning so I went to take a look and the good news is that the free carrot coupon is still there!

Here’s how it works: The coupon is for $2 off 2 Earthbound Farms Organic products. Walmart carries 1 pound bags of Earthbound Farms carrots for $.94 which means that the $.06 overage nearly paid the tax!  The result? Free carrots!

Here’s how to get yours:

1. Click here to sign up for Recyclebank.
2. Once you’ve signed up, click here to find the Earthbound Farms coupon and add it to your cart.
3. Before you can print the coupon you will have to earn points on the Recyclebank website. You can do this in several ways, the easiest of which is to watch a few advertisements. For a complete explanation on how to earn points, click here.