I Got the 'Bootch

Kombucha.

Do you brew?

I DO!

What is kombucha? Kombucha is a lactofermented beverage made from tea that is rich in probiotics and antioxidants and is known for curing everything from digestive problems to gray hair to cancer. Most people note just *feeling better* after drinking it. Kombucha is made by introducing a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) to sweetened, cooled tea and letting them hang out for 7-10 days. Brewing kombucha is honestly, ridiculously easy. The hardest part is obtaining a SCOBY. They can be purchased online, made from a bottle of commercial kombucha or given to you be another brewing buddy. I made mine from a bottle of GTs kombucha. Pour it into a bowl, put a towel over it, leave it alone for a week or so. Eventually a SCOBY will grow.

When you brew LOTS of kombucha for a LONG time you gets LOTS of SCOBYs. Everytime you brew you get another one. Eventually you wind up with a “SCOBY hotel” that you have no idea what to do with but have to feed sweet tea like it was another pet.


My SCOBY hotel. There’s no pool.

Most of the time when I brew kombucha It’s a two part process. While brewing the next batch, I’m also bottling the previous. Here are my two brewing vessels, a one gallon and a two gallon glass jug.


Kombucha ready for bottling.

I find it easiest to first brew so that the tea has some time to cool before the vessels are ready.

First, you have to make tea. I begin by boiling 2 gallons (give or take) of water.


water in a pot. bam.

Once the water is boiling, I add 8 tea bags and 2 cups of sugar. We want to make kinda strong, sweet tea. I use 4 bags of green and 4 bags of black tea. Feel free to experiment with different kinds of tea but don’t use anything that is herbal or that may contain essential oils. It could damage the SCOBY and the SCOBY is your friend. Love her and feed her and she’ll take care of you. Also, speaking of taking care of your SCOBY, stick to plain old sugar. You may substitute with other kinds of sugar (for example sucanat) but don’t use honey. Honey is antibacterial and it will kill your SCOBY.

So anyway, once the water is boiling, dump in 2 cups of sugar and 8 tea bags.



Stir it all together and let it steep and cool. I put the top on to keep germies out but that’s totally counter productive to getting it cool. Let it cool for a few hours. Normally I forget about it at this point until I come into the kitchen the next morning. It’s good and cool by then.

At this point, I turn my attention to bottling. So here we are with 2 finished big jugs of Kombucha.



You can see the SCOBY at the top of the smaller jug. We’re just going to decant this into many smaller jugs for the second fermentation.

These should be enough for 3 gallons of kombucha. First we have to take off the SCOBY. I then pour the kombucha into the jug shown at the top of this photo to pour into the bottles. If you flavor your kombucha, leave a little room at the top. I flavor mine mostly with frozen fruit. I also use dried elderberries for elderberry kombucha. That, along with pineapple, are my favorites!



Once you’ve added your fruit, cap it and leave it out for a second fermentation. The second ferment allows for flavoring and also allows carbonation to build up. The longer it sits out, the more carbonation. I leave mine out for 2 days. Be careful with fresh or frozen fruit, I wouldn’t leave it out longer than 3 days.


from l to r – elderberry, blueberry, raspberry, pineapple

I’m always amazed by the colors when I bottle kombucha. Above picture was after about 20 minutes. I don’t use a lot of fruit – a few chunks of frozen, organic fruit, and it gives these vivid, beautiful colors.

When decanting into bottles, make sure you leave a cup or so of brewed kombucha to feed the next batch. I usually leave a little more than that, depending on how many bottles I have clean.



Now that that’s done and your kombucha is cooled, we just add it to this, plop the SCOBY on top and let it hang out for a week or so. Make sure to cover it with something breathable – a few layers of paper towels or a clean, white towel. The shorter the ferment, the sweeter. The longer the ferment, the more purported health benefits.

So that’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Do you enjoy kombucha? What are your favorite flavors?

Just Another Day in Paradise

We’re getting into a kind of routine around the Brown-stead. Get up with Little and wake up Big. Let the chickens out and do their chores with Big and with Little on my back. Send Big in to get ready for school while I weed the garden and stand around looking at things and breathing.

Like my boots?

During the day I play with Little, bother the chickens, clean, cook, all that fun stuff.

Take pictures of our shoes…you know, the normal.

We eat dinner, I get Little to bed, Mr. Farmer Brown and I go close up chicken shop and watch something stupid on TV.
Big plays outside with her friends.
It’s simple. It’s suburban. It’s mundane and boring.
It’s paradise.

There are eggs in paradise, right?

The Necessity of Anonymity

The Necessity of Anonymity

They’re running from me.

Our chickens are here! My ladies are lovely, although terrified of us. We have 4 laying hens that are about 1 year old. Two Buff Orpingtons and Two Easter Eggers. It’s funny that the two pairs seem to follow each other around.

Buff Orpington

Unfortunately, the town that I live in does not share my infatuation with small scale homesteading or, specifically, chickens. When I inquired as to why, I was told noise. BOOOOO stupid town that I live in. Unfortunately, the town is run by elderly busy bodies with very little imagination that are pretty set in their ways. It’s unlikely that by going to the town I would change their mind, instead it would put their beady little eyes on me and everything I want to do. So, instead of going before the town saying pretty pretty please, we decided to do what we wanted on the land that we own. (Insert further rant about “THE MAN” here)

Big feeds a chicken

All of this hopefully explains my “Farmer Brown” alias and why my beautiful girls are called Big and Little. I know some bloggers make up names but I find it confusing, especially as a new reader.  I understand that this by now way guarantees anonymity and that anyone who truly wanted to know who I was could easily find out. However, it makes me feel better. Seems foolish to do something not allowed and then go on the internet spelling it out, right?
So please, if you know me, please refrain from using my name on here or my girls’ names. Also, my picture was drawn by a good friend, Christine DeRosa who is ridiculously talented, right?
My ladies need names. Any suggestions? Whenever I think of them I hear Beastie Boys in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naf5uJYGoiU

Garden Walk Through the Eyes of a 10 Year Old.

Last week we went on a garden walk at the Museum Garden at the Accokeek Foundation. The Accokeek Foundation is 200 acres of park on the Potomac River that, “serves as an outdoor classroom for educational programs about land conservation, historic preservation, sustainable agriculture, and environmental stewardship.” It’s open dusk to dawn 365 days a year. They have a colonial farm, heritage livestock, an organic Ecosystem Farm, walking trails, cool activities – it’s a pretty interesting place.

We went for a Garden Walk of their Museum Garden which holds a variety of plants – native beds, a small permaculture bed, sundries, medicinal and culinary herbs etc. The idea is that each bed is supposed to convey an idea in gardening – an exhibit if you will. Farmer Dan led us around, explaining everything well with the help of Molly, The Community Outreach and Education Coordinator. Molly is amazing. I need her to come to my wild backyard and tell me what all the things growing back there are and how I can use them. I’m afraid to get rid of anything because I’m pretty sure everything is SOMETHING and I’d hate to find out too late I ripped out something incredibly useful!

So we’re walking, we’re learning. Ten minutes in I’m wishing I’d brought something to take notes on because there’s so much to learn. First off, I’m doing the three sisters thing all wrong. I planted everything at once. You’re supposed to plant the corn, then the squash, then the beans. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes. Also, comfrey. Need to grow the comfrey. It’s BEAUTIFUL!

Isn’t it pretty!

So anyway, we’re walking, we’re learning. We’re ooing and aahing and sniffing and tasting and asking. It’s awesome. But then Little decides she’s DONE. So, while trying (unsuccessfully) to calm her, I handed the camera to Big. She took some nice pictures. Enjoy and let me know if you spot anything familiar!

For more information about the Accokeek Foundation visit http://www.accokeekfoundation.org

Ron Finley, Geurilla Gardner

THIS! Everything about this. It’s only 11 minutes long but I swear it’s life changing. Ron Finley is my new real food/gardening idol. First it was Sally Fallon Morrel but then she came out with her insane children’s nutrition book and ridiculous ideas about who should and should not breastfeed.
Then it was Joel Salatin. Still kinda is but his insistence on only hiring people that look “All American” kinda hurts my feelings. I’m not “All American looking Joel, but I am awesome. Who am I kidding Joel, I can’t stay mad at you. Everything I want to do is illegal too.
So now we’re onto Mr. Ron Finley. Gardening Gangster in South Central LA. Or, excuse me, South LA.
“Food is the problem and the solution”

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.html

Welcome to Seattle

We live about a half an hour south of our Nation’s Capital, in a cozy little suburb in Maryland. There’s a joke around here – if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. Also we very rarely have a true spring that lasts longer than a few weeks. Usually we go from a long, cold, stupid winter to a quick spring, to a long, hot glorious summer. Not this year. Winter drug on much longer than usual (winter coats on Easter!) and for the first time in a long time we’re having a true Spring. I don’t like it one bit. It’s cold, it’s rainy, it’s not 80 degrees. We had a frost warning two nights ago! My plants are growing and germinating but not at the rate I’d like them to be or that they would be if it would warm up a tad and give them a little sunshine. I transplanted my tomatoes 2 weeks ago and I swear they haven’t grown at all.

Anywhoo. Enough Debbie Downer about things I can’t control. Any suggestions on how to make tomatoes grow big and strong and delicious?
The search is out for pullets! I’m hoping for 4 ladies from the same flock. Either already laying or about to lay. Easter eggers, Marans, Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns or Silkies. Leghorns are good layers but is it shallow of me not to want white eggs?
We recently went on a field trip to The Accokeek Foundation. We went on a Garden Walk of their Museum Garden. Learned lots, post coming soon.

It's a Big Day Around the Brown House.

Mr. Farmer Brown and I got married a year ago today. Happy Anniversary to us! We celebrate with raw fish and punk rock, cus that spells true love <3

It’s been raining here the last few days. Nice, slow and steady, seed germinating rain. The kind that pours down, stops long enough for the earth to soak up the love, and then starts again. Good smelling, life renewing, sleep with the windows open kind of rain. I love it. It also gives me a reason not to leave the house so I love it twice.

Some of my deck containers. Pickling cucumbers, black cherry tomato and red vine tomato. Just outside of frame are hot peppers. They’re camera shy.

I went outside to walk around, breathe the fresh air in and check on everything during a break in the rain yesterday. Out of habit, I grabbed the hose while I was out there. Whoops, won’t be needing that. What a different a few days of rain makes! Almost everything is poking through. The only thing not in in the front bed is the corn which hates cold, wet soil. Hopefully our nice rain didn’t cause the seeds to rot.

front bed, early may
Front bed before the rains. Zucchini and Squash transplanted well, Peas and Beans taking off along the chicken wire trellis

I say almost everything is coming through. The front bed is a vision of beautiful budding spring, the back one is not. The only thing living in there are weeds and a head of romaine that I planted last year but just showed up this year when I was turning over the beds to prepare them for planting. I’ve planted things in there twice so far but nothing has germinated. I think it’s my seeds. It was supposed to be a lettuce and greens bed but I’m afraid it’s too late to plant anything again. It’ll be too hot and go to seed before we’re able to enjoy it. So I have two options that I can see. I can buy some seedlings at Moms (organic and/or heirloom) or I can plant more of what’s in the first bed. I’m leaning for the second option. A few more rows or corn (which I should have anyway to ensure full ears), some pickling cucumbers, some beans.

My beds aren’t much, especially for me calling myself Farmer Brown, but they’re a start for us. I’m already enjoying my one, lonely romaine plant and get so tickled to pick a leaf or two for a sandwich or a burger. I look forward to enjoying the bounty of my backyard and even be able to put some up to enjoy later (more beans! more cucumbers!).

Kindly and Gently

I am the mother of the two most interesting, amazing people that I have ever met in my life. They are 10 years and 7 months old and positively adore one another. My big girl loves to play with her little sister, carry her around, do her hair, all the fun stuff. My baby girl lights up when her big sister walks in the room and leans over for her to take her from Mama’s boring old arms. She plays with me all day – I’m old news when Sissy gets home.
But sometimes Sissy plays too rough. Sometimes baby girl pinches or pulls and doesn’t know what she’s doing. They both need a reminder – “Are you treating your sister Kindly and Gently?”
How often, as adults, do we need that gently reminder? Are we treating those we love Kindly and Gently? Do we get wrapped up in life and our needs and play too rough? Do we forget that sometimes, just a hug will do?

The Farmer's Market is OPEN!

Yesterday was a productive day around here. My oldest had to meet her girl scout troop at 7:30 for camping, so once I was out and about I went ahead and got some things done! Checked out our local Southern States and got a feeder, some oyster shell, and the remaining necessary materials to finish the coop for my soon to be arriving chickens and then went to my happy place, the Farmers Market. Our local one closes during the winter and this was opening weekend. I love poking around, seeing what others are growing. Smelling, tasting and looking at all the amazing produce and handmade awesomeness that this area produces. Some women go crazy at the shoe store, I love the market. I purchased a few herbs to pot on my deck, some delicious fresh strawberries (those didn't make it through the day), lovely eggs from free range chickens that are fed the same soy free organic feed that I bought for my chickens, local wildflower honey and a yummy little banana bread loaf to munch on while I walked around.
It's important to note that there are three "Farmer's Markets" in my area. There's only one that I would actually call a true Farmer's Market. One has evolved into more of a flea market where you can buy anything from trucked in out of season pesticide laden produce to used power tools to bootleg DVDs. They also have some livestock but they don't look too happy. We bought a dog there once. He was a jerk. The other Market is held at our local courthouse 2 days a week. It's better than the first, but still hosts the same distributor selling trucked in out of season pesticide laden produce. There is no reason I should ever be able to find an orange at a Farmer's Market in Maryland in May. Or really, ever. Let's work with what grows here, people! On the other side, there are some local farmers and food vendors that are there selling their wares also. It's a bit of a mixed bag. Then, there's my beloved Farmer's Market. This one is my favorite. No distributors, local produce and artisans, nice people that love to talk to you about what they grow (I had my ear talked off by a beekeeper - homey was PASSIONATE!) and they take debit! And WIC and EBT and Snap Cards! And, somehow or another, they give you a bonus for using your WIC checks there. They have such a wide variety of things - local meat, produce, cheese, soaps and body care, plants, jellies and jams...all kinds of good stuff. I'm excited to see it open again.
When we're involved with our food, we become excited about it. We become connected to it. It becomes so much more than just microwave, fork, mouth, chew, swallow, repeat. It's an experience to be savored and enjoyed and then talked about later. What about your food has you excited today?

Farmer Brown Plants a Bed

Front bed is IN folks! Frost date around here is May 10. I thought about waiting until then but figured I'd push it a week. It's warming up and the forecast says it should continue on that path so I went ahead yesterday and put everything in. Other members of my local homesteaders group all had everything in so I figured I better keep up with the crowd.
Front bed is:

• Few rows of corn
• Zucchini and yellow crook neck squash
• 2 kinds of beans (one bush, one runner)
• Snow peas
• Pumpkins
• Cucumbers (eventually)

Eventually on the cucs. The last few years I've planted some that produced huge beautiful cucumbers but I realized when I went to plant that I was out! As I keep horrible notes (read:nonexistent) I didn't realize that until I went to plant them and have no idea what they were. Whoops. Don't be like me kids, write down what you plant. So, eventually. I have to buy some seeds!
Zucchini, beans and corn were planted in "Three Sisters" fashion with corn plants interspersed between beans and zucchini. Corn will grow tall, beans will grow up corn and zucchini will provide cover to keep the soil cool. We'll see how it works.
Also transferred my seedlings outside. They'd been hardening off in the porch for the last 2 weeks and had spent the last 3 days outside all the time, figured they were about ready! I have 2 pots of tomatoes, pickling cucumbers (anyone have a good pickle recipe??), hot peppers and sweet peppers. Our backyard has some issues (a later post) so for the moment my two raised beds and containers on the deck are what we have going on.