Tabla de contenidos para July/August 2021 en Grit

My parents bought a small parcel of land a few years ago. Their new home doesn’t offer quite enough space for livestock beyond chickens, which my dad isn’t sold on yet anyway, but it’s plenty large enough that hauling anything from one side of the property to another is a chore. My mom has been gradually planting up the dam around their little pond with native grasses and forbs; our part of Kansas was once tallgrass prairie, and she’s determined to return a portion of their land to that state. We often chat about plants and swap between our gardens; my yard tends to be soggy until August, when it bakes as hard as a brick, so I also make use of native plants in the flowerbeds to improve my…

Regardless of where you live, a citrus plant can make a wonderful addition to your home. Citrus plants are aesthetically pleasing, and they produce fragrant flowers. And, of course, there’s the high-quality fruit, just waiting for you to reach out and pick it. For many years, my wife and I enjoyed growing a potted ‘Meyer’ lemon tree. I still remember cutting into the freshly picked fruit and seeing the juice ooze out of the lemon. What a difference from store-bought lemons! If you don’t live in a climate that supports citrus, you can still grow these trees in pots. Keep them inside during winter, and then place them outside during the warmer part of the year. Start small trees in pots ranging from 1 to 3 gallons, depending on the…

A gardener’s work is never done. In spring, we plan our space and plant our seeds. We nurture our fragile seedlings, providing them with healthy soil, clean water, and warming sun. When summer’s heat begins to beat down upon our shoulders, we prune, trellis, and irrigate our precious plants. We weed and water and weed again in what seems like an eternal, uphill battle against grasses, plantains, and pigweeds. As fall arrives, baskets and bushels of colorful produce fill our kitchens as we begin to reap the bounty of our labors, harvesting, feasting, and preserving the garden’s bounty in preparation for the winter months ahead. And during winter, we plan and dream, fantasizing about the staggering array of diversity offered within the vividly colored pages of our favorite seed catalogs.…

Imagine that it’s harvest time, and you find a tomato that’s a bit larger than the others in your garden. Inspired by this, you decide to try breeding extra-large tomatoes. You begin by collecting the seeds from this large tomato, and the next year, you plant 20 tomato plants from those seeds. At harvest time of that year, you select the largest tomatoes and save their seeds. You then repeat this cycle for 20 years. For two decades, you plant 20 plants every year, each seeded by the biggest tomatoes from the previous year. What do you think would happen to those plants? If your tomato plant was a commercially available open-pollinated (OP) cultivar — an heirloom variety, for example — then the most likely result would be that your…

Now that you’re prepared to keep your gutters in tiptop shape, what should you do with the runoff? Here are a few options: INSTALL A RAIN BARREL OR CISTERN. Collect rainwater for use in your garden or home. Many DIY designs exist for roofs of all sizes. If your property is on a slope, you may be surprised by how well water can travel to where you need it without a pump. Search for “rain barrel” at www.Grit.com to find how-to articles on making your own rain barrel setup. FILL A WATERING TANK. A downspout that empties into a water trough is convenient for livestock barns with animals housed immediately outside. A good rain event will overflow a trough, so make sure there’s a system in place to divert excess…

Gate Weight While some aspects of farm chores aren’t difficult, they can be easy to forget, such as closing a gate. To solve the problem, suspend a weight on a rope or chain, and attach one end of the rope to the gate post. Then, attach the other end of the rope to the far side of the gate frame. My father used a blacksmith’s anvil; I use a barbell weight or a milk jug filled with sand. Any weight suitable to the size of the gate will do. Secure the weight in the middle of the rope so it sits just off the ground when the gate is closed. When the gate is opened, the weight will automatically swing it shut. Elevated Milk Stand A special bond exists between…

JOIN THE CONVERSATION Foraging for Mushrooms (www.Grit.com/Mushroom-Foraging) William Laut: Mushrooms are definitely a crop I will grow in the forested areas of my property. Morels, especially. Nance Pushka: I’m starting morels and winecaps this week. I love mushrooms but don’t know enough about them to pick them on my own. Jon-Sheryl Ward: Please let us know how the growing with spores goes. I have seen mixed reviews, and I would like to hear about it from someone who has actually done it. POPULAR ON GRIT.COM The Beginning Beekeeper By Liz Fulghum The interesting thing about the beekeeping community in general is that there are different opinions of “what works” for almost every single aspect of managing bees. And beekeepers can be a prickly lot, who are happy to vigorously debate…

When Manal moved to New York City in 2013, she was disappointed with the quality of the supermarket hummus — it didn’t even come close to the amazing taste and texture of her grandmother’s recipe back home in Lebanon. Craving a taste of home, she began to make batches of her Syrian grandmother’s hummus regularly, and word got out among her friends in New York. They raved about it so much that she asked herself, “Why not share this hummus with everyone?” What she quickly realized was that the success had only a little to do with the hummus itself and much more to do with the story behind it. It carried memories from a faraway and mysterious land. Her audience had heard of Syria in the news, but under…

Rural America faces a digital divide. Poor internet service is an issue for households and businesses across the country. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), more than 21 million Americans lack high-speed broadband service, and some experts believe that number is actually much higher. As private enterprise focuses infrastructure build-out in high-population areas, rural communities have to get creative to get connected, which is exactly what happened in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. The 2019 study “Broadband Availability and Access in Rural Pennsylvania” conducted by Penn State found that while FCC data suggests broadband service is universally available throughout Pennsylvania, actual speed test data found that the median speeds across most of the state don’t meet the FCC’s minimum upload and download requirements to qualify as broadband. Frustrated by the lack…

To cross one plant with another, you’ll need to learn a little about plant and floral anatomy. Flowers contain the sex organs of angiosperms (flowering plants). Some species grow as either male or female plants, each bearing male or female flowers, respectively. In others, such as most squash and melons, each plant grows both male and female flowers. And in plant species such as tomatoes and beans, each individual flower contains both male and female parts. At the center of a female flower or the female part of a flower, a structure called the “pistil” holds the ovary and structures (called the “stigma” and “style”) that lead to the ovary. The stigma receives the pollen, while the style leads the pollen from the stigma to the ovules in the ovary.…

Our daughter, Sarah, recently texted us: “Took a new walk. Found purple splotches all over road. U know what that means.” Indeed, we did … mulberries! Sarah and her family live across the hollow from us, on our 38 acres in Botetourt County, Virginia. We’ve passed our passion for foraging down to Sarah, and where we live, wild mulberry trees are uncommon. Finding a new source, any source, of the native red mulberry (Morus rubra) is always scintillating news. Folks who haven’t eaten mulberries may not understand our enthusiasm for this summer fruit. After all, aren’t mulberries just another edible in a season that boasts numerous delicious wild fruits, such as raspberries, wineberries, blackberries, dewberries, and blueberries? Although we gather all of those delicacies, none are as sweet as the…

Where to Check for Ticks Where to Check for Ticks on your pet If you’re bitten by a tick, it isn’t just Lyme disease you need to worry about. There are other tick-borne infections you can get from a bite, so it’s important to ensure you minimize the risk of encounters with ticks and the possibility of a bite. Tick Checks Checking for ticks is one habit that I highly recommend everyone adopt, whether you live rurally or in the city. I can’t emphasize this enough. Tick populations vary depending on where you live. Tick densities are likely to be considerably lower on a city lawn than they are in the leaf litter on a forest floor, but that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter a tick on your lawn. Tick…

Farming is about passion. The love of growing things and sharing them with others keeps us farmers going despite the challenges. One of the trials that many small-scale growers face is entry into the market, especially when competing with large, established farms already selling common items. For some farmers, growing a niche crop or a crop that’s not grown locally can put their farm on the map. In New Jersey, Vivek and Seema Malik, owners of Bhumi Growers, turned their passion for a hard-to-find fruit into a successful citrus farm located states away from typical citrus territory. In Pursuit of ‘Yuzu’ Vivek and Seema spent years working in New York City before starting Bhumi Growers. (“Bhumi” means “Mother Earth” in Hindi.) “We are both immigrants to the country,” Vivek says.…

As I read “Sow, Sow, Sow a Row” (Our View, March/April 2021), I noted that Caitlin couldn’t find a vendor for saffron bulbs. I’m writing to give you the name, address, and phone number of a nursery in Oregon that sells saffron bulbs. When I visited Oregon in 2018 with my best friend, she and I stayed with her godmother in Scio, Oregon. She took us to this nursery where she buys her seeds and other things. While looking around the store, I was excited to find saffron bulbs! I bought a dozen, and received advice on growing them. When we finally ventured home, I put them in a pot, watered them lightly, and waited for a sign of life from the dormant bulbs. Finally, not long after planting them,…

Quality pasture is vital for maintaining the health and nourishment of your animals. Even if your pasturage is only 3 to 5 acres, you can develop and maintain enough good grazing to support a couple of horses or a few head of cattle. If you’ve recently acquired property with old, abandoned pasture that you’ve considered restoring, getting the grassland back into shape may not be as difficult as you imagine. Here are some initiatives for restoring an aging pasture and, just as importantly, for keeping it in good condition for years to come. Down to the Ground Whether you’re overhauling an old pasture or increasing the productivity of an existing one, your efforts should begin with a test to give you an overall health score for the soil’s growing conditions.…

The oldest known textile used by humans isn’t woven. It uses no loom to make and needs no special equipment or ingredients. It’s the stuff of myths and legends — quite literally. Feltmaking is older than spinning and weaving, and many cultures have legends about how it was invented, from travelers wearing wool-packed sandals while on the run to a frustrated shepherd crying and stomping on a pile of wool. The legends all contain kernels of truth; they all refer to the three elements necessary to produce felt: fleece, moisture, and agitation. Historically, felt played a central role in people’s lives in Central Asia, Mongolia, and parts of the Middle East. These peoples made saddles, tents, and clothing from felt because of its strength and resistance to wet and snowy…

Around the world and throughout history, people have had vastly different relationships with fat than we have in our culture today. Fat has been highly valued as food, medicine, and resource, and fat on the physical body as a sign of security, wealth, wisdom, and even health. But today, many images of beauty and health have become inseparable from a worldview that sees deprivation and self-control as more virtuous than satisfaction, enjoyment, and nourishment. Fat — a highly nutritious, protective, and healing substance — has borne the brunt of this Western attitude, depriving generations of people the opportunity to be healed and sustained by fat. Fat is essential. It heals the digestive tract and nourishes the brain, as well as the musculoskeletal, endocrine, hormonal, reproductive, immune, and cardiovascular systems. Many…

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I’ve been working with heritage breeds for nearly four decades, but one above all others inspires me every time I gaze upon it: the Poitou donkey. Few know its name, but many folks have seen or heard about this shaggy donkey that looks like it’s covered in dreadlocks. I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s immune to the charm of its lovable appearance and famously sweet disposition. But as likable as the breed is, it’s not a donkey for everyone. As a critically endangered breed, anyone thinking of getting involved with Poitou donkeys must do their homework far in advance and know exactly what kind of commitment will be needed to be a responsible steward. Poitou Origins The Poitou is known as the Baudet du Poitou (“donkey sire of Poitou”) in…