master gardener!

 What a busy few months. This spring has been filled with non stop projects and class. After 3 months of classes and 24 volunteer hours I am officially a Master Gardener Volunteer for Wisconsin!

I learned so much in that class. The soil texturing and soil testing analysis was the most interesting part to me. I could go through soil samples all day and try to figure out how much clay is in them. Part of the class is we got to get our soil tested from our yards. Mine came back 5.2 on the acidic side. I ended up planting two blueberry plants and an elderberry. All three are thriving. My baby apple tree and my grapes from the last post have yet to leaf out though.
My husband has his permaculture design certificate so I sort of learned along with him about permaculture a few years back but no one really knows what permaculture is up here so this Master Gardeners certificate gives me more credibility when I request to volunteer and work with the kids in the school garden.

Now I am back to working with the elementary school kids to get their school garden planted. I also worked with another elementary school about 20 miles away. This year we planted an entire bed of herbs. Other beds of tomatoes, peppers, squash and more of a focus on root vegetables and less on lettuce because of the condition the lettuce is in September when the kids come back to school to harvest the garden.

When I plant with the kids I like to bring up how to cook the food we are planting and ask them about if they have tried it and how they like to help cook in the kitchen. Most kids up here have some relatives that are farmers but a lot of the kids are still very poor and do not have access to healthy foods and they are suffering by being over weight. This same group of kids comes back next fall as 4th graders to harvest the garden and weigh all the produce.

A friend gave me about 45 pounds of lard form her Hungarian breed pigs. I spent two days rendering lard and pouring it into jars. This lard is a fantastic bright white color. I am all stocked up now for soap making. I also use lard for tamales and pie crusts. 

I began working with a local bee keeper that works at the extension office that I connected with through master gardeners. He has been bee keeping for 10+years. I have been able to see what a hive looks like that came out strong from being over wintered and a weak hive and what he used to overwinter the hives. We added new bees to hive boxes and watched them make comb, lay eggs, larva, make drones and I got to see a queen. I t was very interesting to see how relaxed a hive can be and how pissed off another hive can be. It really is great to work with a bee keeper and not just go by what was taught in my class. I like being able to ask questions and get answers in the same day.

I did get a pretty good bee sting in my head, and it hurts just as bad as I remember. I learned a hard lesson, not to undress out of  the bee suit next to the bee yard. NOW I walk pretty far away and remove the suit and leave it in a bin. I got a lesson in fencing to use around your hives to keep black bear out. He uses 10,000 volts electric fence. Bears are sneaky, they can climb over the fence they can also plow right though it. It is important to be able to ZAP them pretty good. Bears are a terrible nuisance around Northern Wisconsin, they have gotten in my trash and they trash people's bird feeders and I see them dead along the highway all the time.

The spring rain brought out the oyster mushrooms in my woods. I have not seen other wild mushrooms yet. My husband was the first to spot these oysters on the log along side of our driveway.

Oyster mushroom

Now that it is officially fishing season in Wisconsin I thought I would share a neat site about bullhead fishing and eating.  I always thought bullheads were garbage fish but this site has peaked my interest in catching them and eating them with my son.

Grafting

One of my master gardening classes was all about fruit tree grafting and grape vine pruning. As part of the class I got to take two grape vines home. I chose MN 78 and Baltica grape varieties. Both of these grades are table grapes great for jellies and wine. These grape varieties were pruned directly from the UW Extension office display garden where I take my class, so at least I know they will grow in my zone. They instructor said they made wine with them last year and we might get to sample some, WI requires him to file for a permit to legally serve us one sip. 

I made my first Apple graft. I used Emla 7 a semi dwarf root stock with a honey crisp scion wood. I cut each piece on the bias then cut a groove into each part, sort of like a tongue and groove. It was call the whip method. It's very important to make the root stock cut and the scion cut the same size. This insures the cambium, vascular part inside, lines up. After that I wrapped the two attached sections with a thin rubber band, then wrapped this wax grafting tape around it. 

I soaked everything over night in water. And planted the next day. 

My tiny Apple graft. 

I had to dip the end of each grape vine in rooting hormone. Then stick them in the hole. 

Next step is to protect them from rabbits, deer and the lawn mower with a small cage. Side note that stuff is extreamly sharp after you snip it with the wire cutters I wore leather gloves.

GOOD NEWS!! The 4 apple trees, 2 pear and 2 cherry trees that we planted last April over wintered and all have buds on them!! Yay!! Our thrifty stake and fishing line fence worked keeping deer away too. 

I have been volunteering like crazy, I have to get 24 hours logged to become a master gardener. I went to the tribal preschool and planted seeds. Was a helper for a shiitake growing class and went to my sons preschool and talked maple syrup tapping. I want to mostly work with kids when I become a master gardener. A lot of other people that are master gardeners are retired and work in the flower gardens. I don't really have an interest in flower gardening except for pollinators. 

I have been working with my son more on cooking his own food. Him and all his classmates made their own pancakes. 

I have been assisting him with learning knife skills and requiring he cut his own veggies and make his own sandwiches. He can only handle the knives with me next to him for now. My goal is to work up to his own pocket knife. 

Finally, my first sign of spring in the north woods. (Two days later it snowed.) 

Boil

The sap collecting began. My son carries the 5 gallon jugs and the funnel to the trees. I remove the bags and pour the sap into the jugs while my son holds  the jugs steady. He likes to go up the spout and lick the sap drops dripping from the trees. If you want a great work out, carry 5 gallon jugs filled with sap up the long driveway. Each jug weighs about 40 pounds when its full. My six trees produced about 15 gallons of sap.

My husband adjusted the fire pit with fire bricks to rest the grate on. Last year I had the set up in the driveway on cinder blocks and all the blocks cracked. He dug out the front of the fire pit for easier loading of the wood. I start the fire and then go to the wood shed to split more wood. Usually about 2-3 wheelbarrows full of wood lasts the 8 hours of burning.

My Coffeeshop buddy gave me 30 gallons of his sap to boil down again this year. He boils down until he gets sick of it then gives his surplus sap to me. I sat outside from 12pm-8pm all week long burning down sap. Once I got all of the sap evaporated down to fit 30 gallons in the pan I brought it inside to finish it off on the stove so I could keep a close eye on it. This is the stage you have to watch it because it will boil over and make a hot sticky mess. Once the sap hits 219 degrees it syrup and its ready to be filtered and poured into jars.

My 15 gallons boiled down is way lighter

My buddy's 30gallons of sap is way darker than mine

I have been trying to increase the amount of healthy fats I eat so I made Fat Bombs! They are coconut oil, almond butter, coconut flakes, nuts, craisins and extra dark chocolate. I eat these as little snacks when I am craving dessert.

RECIPE:

1 C  Coconut pil

1C   Almond Butter

1/2 C Coconut flour

1/4 C Dried Coconut flakes

1/4 C Craisins

1/4 C Slivered Almonds

2tsp Vanilla

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp salt

Maple syrup or honey to taste- ok to skip too

1/2 bag dark chocolate chips

I melt everything in a pan over medium heat,

I scoop them into tiny wrappers.

The last step I add 4 dark chocolate chips to each one. Then stick in the fridge to harden up. They are fantastic. They will start to melt at room temp, so they need to be stored in the fridge in a zip lock bag after they harden.

Schooling & Maple Sap

I was reading that Wisconsin has 4 seasons: Winter Season, Summer Season, Deer Season and Mud Season. This made me laugh because I think it might be correct. I would get rid of Summer Season and replace it with Mosquito Season. A couple weeks ago it got up into the 40s and all of our snow melted and our yard and drive way turned into mud pit again. We had to park the vehicles on the road to keep from making ruts on the driveway. The warm weather made me think about Maple Syrup!!! I tapped my trees and sap was just pouring out of the drilled holes.

Drip by drip to fill the bag.

I attached the blue sap collecting bags and by the next day they were already half full.

After 2 hours.

After 2 hours.

Just as a reminder, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. I still have many more gallons to collect.

 Thanks to a tip from my coffee shop buddy I went to the grocery store and asked the Deli for their old vegetable oil jugs. Each jug is 5 gallons and easier to pour out then the 5 gallon buckets I used last year I will fill these jugs with sap to store it until boiling day.

The temperature dropped and the last 4 days it has been about 0 degrees over night and 15 degrees as a high. This means my sap is frozen in the bags and that sap has stopped flowing.

Now I am getting spring fever and want it to warm up a bit for sap collecting and I'm getting annoyed with wearing my winter jacket all the time.

It has been a busy few weeks fled with bees, gardening and Thai cooking classes. My friend and I took a bee keeping class at the Universoty of Minnesota.

It was an 8 hour course and we learned about hive dynamics, bee life cycle, mites and dieases, bee keeping gear, getting stung/ allergic reactions how to paint and stack the boxes and how to collect honey.  Eveything seems great but I really want to work with an established bee keeper before I buy my equipment. Not to mention its about $400 to get all the gear and box of bees to start out with. Actually more  money because I need to figure out a bear proof solution. One solution  is electro fencing in the hive but a friend's husband brought up how bees can sting a bear but it doesn't care and keeps eating honey so it could plow right though electro fence if it wanted to. He suggested maybe a tall chain link dog kennel and putting the bees inside of that. The bear could still climb in if it wanted to. The best part of the whole bee keeping class was my friend taking me out on a date to a wonderful restaurant filled with fantastic food and multiple glasses of wine.



I started a Master Gardener class. This course is 13 weeks long and I have to complete 24 volunteer hours to get my certificate.

I'm very excited to volunteer and work with kids again in the school garden but without all of the bureaucracy and paper work that was need when I was an Americorps volunteer. We will be learning about botany, soil health, disease and many other subjects over the next 13 weeks.

My son and I made a fairy house out of some cut wood from the dead tree harvest. My son picked out all of the figurines. He placed everything where he wanted it and I hot glued everything down. I let him sort through my tiny agates, he used them to make a walking path. It was a very fun project. Now he wants to make a "spooky troll house"

Pruning

 The dead tree harvest continues. This huge aspen could have fallen on the house in a big storm so it came down. The top half was dead.

















Its fruit tree pruning season in my part of the country. I know absolutely nothing about pruning trees except you are suppose to do it while they are dormant.  I sat down and spent about an hour reading up on it and watching a few different you tube videos. From what I gathered the whole point of pruning is to 1) to create light exposure for both leaves and fruit; 2) provide uniform distribution of fruiting branches; 3) control the size of the tree; 4) reduce limb breakage due to heavy fruit loads; and 5) produce high quality fruit of good size. I really didn't have to do that much, I sniped a couple branches growing sideways back through the tree. I didn't want to go all crazy and hack apart my trees.

Last fall we were all tapped out of money so we had about $35 budget for a tree fence to protect them from deer. We purchased plastic trunk protectors and built a thrifty fence out of 6ft tall spikes and fishing line with soda cans hanging form it. We tapped in the spikes and wrapped the fishing line around the perimeter of the orchard area at three different levels. Then hung a few soda cans around the fence.

The fishing line is hard to see but its tied on at three different heights.

Yes, I know this is totally insane we live in the middle of the woods with deer tracks in our yard. I know nothing about deer behavior or eating habits beyond they like to eat corn in the fields and ate all of our pumpkins in the garden I volunteered at. The fence is working, we have not had a problem all winter. Or maybe because we compost our toilet waste they smell it and stay away. Who knows!!!!

Next project is we tiled the back splash in the kitchen. The company that installed the counter top warned us to get it done asap to avoid mold growing on the sheet rock. I thought it would be a great winter project. Tiling is annoying. Mostly because you have to be bent over in a weird way applying tiles under the cabinets. I struggled with getting the mud on thin enough.

The other annoying part was measuring and making tiny cuts to fit around the outlets. I had my husband do all the cutting with the saw. We have a really cool neighbor that has a whole collection of tools that he loans us, the saw is one of them. I thought it was going to be a quick 2 hour job, nope, 6 hours later it was completed. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It gives the kitchen some texture to distinguish it from the rest of the house.


My husband made a cat toy. He had my son collect a stick and tied the very end of a squirrel tail onto a it. I think its a little creepy.