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Managing a Suburban Harvest

By Rosie Kern

 

I live just south of the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico on half an acre.  This is a convenient halfway point for anyone who longs for a touch of country self-sufficiency but who may have a need to be near a larger population base for some reason.

The property is large enough for me to have a 50×60 vegetable garden, fruit trees, a beehive and chickens.  I enjoy organic gardening, canning and otherwise processing the foods I eat to enjoy all year.  The problem is that my harvest extends for a long time, but I don’t always have the time to pull down my canner!

Commercial farmers plant large areas and harvest everything at once – at the time they feel their plants have most of the produce at a perfect state of ripeness.  Then everything gets trotted off for processing.

In my garden I have 5 varieties of peppers, 2 types of tomatoes, green beans, lima beans, corn, cabbage, potatoes, onions, potatoes, peas, asparagus, broccoli, apples, pears, pecans, cherries, and a lot of herbs.   They do not all ripen at once.  (thank heaven)

Sometimes I can anticipate when a lot of one thing will be ready, but more often than not things will ripen in stages.  It is ridiculous to fire up the pressure canner for just a couple of quart jars!  Not to mention that sometimes other personal responsibilities or vacation will supersede the joy of cooking and processing.

There are a few ways you can handle this with your kitchen garden to make it easier and more efficient.

Tomatoes are one of my favorite items to preserve – they are so versatile! Salsas, soups, sauces – YUM!   The first luscious red fruits are sparse, but over time they pick up the pace.  I plant just a few of the large beefsteak type tomatoes, a couple cherry tomatoes and 7 or 8 thicker paste tomatoes.  Though the beefsteak and cherries are primarily for eating fresh, an overabundance of either can be added to the paste tomatoes when canning.

During those times when there are more ripe tomatoes than I have time to process, I will harvest and wash them, frequently cutting them into chunks and removing stems or spots.  Then they get put into a gallon sized Ziploc bag and plopped into the freezer.

Freezing at the peak of ripeness is a perfect way to build up enough of them for a good day of cooking and canning later on.  I leave the nutritious skins on because tossing them in a food processor pulverizes them beautifully.

Another vegetable than you can partially process then freeze for future use are green chile peppers. Chiles are normally roasted and skinned before being cooked or canned. If you have a couple hours you can pick the ones you feel are large enough and roast them on your BBQ grill.  You want them to puff up and the skins to brown and crack a bit – but don’t blacken them entirely!

You can grill at least a bucket full at a time.  First soak the peppers for 1- 3 hours in water, then fire up the grill to high and toss them on.  An option to turning them individually by hand is a grilling basket or rotisserie cage which allows you to turn them easier.

Take the roasted peppers and place them in a zip bag or other airtight container while they are still very hot and let them set in a warm place for a few hours or overnight.  This is called “sweating” them, which helps separate the meat from the skins.  Then plop them in the freezer.

Some people just leave them in the freezer until they wish to use them in cooking.  I don’t have enough freezer space to keep everything I harvest there so I process as much as possible by canning.  When you are ready to use them or can them you take them from the freezer to a clean kitchen sink.  Fill the sink with water and when they thaw out you can begin stripping the skins from the peppers by hand.

Wearing rubber or latex gloves is a VERY good idea as the capsaicin in the peppers will make your hands burn after a while. I usually heavily cream my hands an hour before donning the gloves as an extra precaution.

Once the skins, stems and most of the seeds are removed you can either process them whole, chopped, or make great tasting sauces with them.   I get heartburn from bell peppers and poblanos, but I have no problems with pimentos, cayenne or green chile.  As a result my homemade spaghetti sauce has a mild bite to it, which southwesterners appreciate!

Like most home farmers I love to pick my ears of corn just as they are fully ripe.  If some of them escape my notice they can start to dry out a bit…or sometimes a lot.  That’s ok. When I find those I just let them continue to dry out until I am ready to use them.  Then I shuck them and cut the kernels off and add them to homemade soups and stews.

If pollination has been spotty the corn cob may be partially bald. Rather than serve them on the cob I will cut the kernels off and freeze them.  You can also freeze full cobs, but it takes a lot of freezer space.

Potatoes can be left in the ground long after the tops die back.  A mild freeze late in fall won’t usually hurt the ones that have a few inches of dirt over the top.  Onions, carrots and garlic can just stay where they are all winter until I want to use them.

Broccoli is planted very early in the year – before the last frost date.  It can handle a bit of cold.  However it will create one big head per plant which commercial farmers harvest and sent to the store before plowing the rest of the plant under.  Personally I think that is very premature!   After I’ve harvested (and eaten) the main head I leave the plant in the ground where it will start to send out side shoots.  You won’t ever get another great big head, but the little shoots are great in salads and stir fry.

Cabbages are another plant that develop one huge head.  However, the leaves around the main head are also edible and can be snipped off at any time for cole slaw, sauerkraut, or cabbage rolls.

In many climates carrots, parsnips, turnips, garlic and onion seed can be planted in the fall just before the first frost.  Cover the beds in straw when nighttime freezes begin.  You’d be amazed how many of them will be pushing up early next spring and ripe by June.

Of course, if you just have too much food on your hands at any given time, neighbors and local foodbanks will thank you for it.  Giving away your extras makes a lot of friends!

 

Rose M. Kern is a New Mexico Master Gardener and the author of “Creating Microclimates for High Desert Gardening.”   She cans much of her home grown produce or cooks delicious meals in her solar oven.  For more information www.solarranch.com


Modify Your Market Booth

 

 

It’s a beautiful day in the desert.  Probably going to be hot…that’s a given…so you need a shade structure to set up over whatever items you plan on selling today.  Whether it be vegetables, crafts or pretty much anything, you and your customers will appreciate relief from the sun!

The 10×10 foot awnings available anywhere will provide shade.  These are generically designed to protect from a light rain as well.  Most of them have stakes to drive into the ground for stability from a light breeze, but the biggest drawback will be any moderate or greater gust of wind.  I’ve seen these shelters picked up by afternoon desert winds and tossed around like a dog with a stuffed toy.

You can mitigate the wind flow problem by using several strategies for anchoring or modifying the standard structure.  Ropes or bungees hooked to the upper corners and secured to cement bricks or 5 gallon buckets or plastic tanks of water is a good start, if you are allowed to set up next to a truck you can anchor to it as well.  Even then you’ll get some significant pulling when the wind scoops up from underneath. Even if the structure stays in place the wind can warp or damage the poles.

Another modification that significantly lessens winds ability to pull the structure.  Set it up and using a very sharp knife, make some V shaped or wave shaped slits in the fabric roof.  My daughter and I carved several different patterns into one of our structures and they work very well.  Also, in order to “hide” the modifications, we used acrylic paint to create a nice mountain picture on the outside of the roof.

The next time I set up to do some solar cooking demonstrations my structure withstood the afternoon winds significantly better than the others in the area.  While neighbors grabbed for the anchor posts frequently, the wind fluttered through and escaped through the venting.  We don’t often have to worry about heavy rain here, and the structure will still tolerate a mild rain without soaking people and items inside.

 

 

 

 



Finding Your Niche Markets

Are you a writer who wants to make money with your craft?

The first step is knowing who your real audience is.  You can find your audience by knowing your own capabilities and all the ways they touch on other people’s interests. 

SouthWest Writers is sponsoring a workshop being presented by Rose Marie Kern on Saturday: January 8, 2022, from 12:30 – 2:30 pm mountain time.  It is a Hybrid Meeting: In Person and via Zoom so anyone, anywhere,  can attend.  The cost is only $30 for the general public.

If you are searching for your audience? Rose Marie  will give you some insights into the knowledge, skills, and abilities you already have which can stimulate your creativity in writing.

This workshop will discuss:
√ What is a Niche Market?
√ Identifying your skills and abilities.
√ Marketing your niches.
√ Using your niches to create multiple streams of income.

Rose Marie Kern has written over 1,000 published articles and 5 books on the topics of aviation, gardening, sustainability, solar cooking and writing. Her wealth of experience in these areas provides her a rich basis for each one.

To Register:
Call the SWW office (505-830-6034, Monday–Thursday, 9:00 am–noon) or use the Online Registration Form. (Our online payment portal utilizes PayPal, but you’ll be given an option to pay by credit card without signing into PayPal.)

The Zoom invitation link and the password will be emailed to those who register. Please contact the class/workshop coordinator at Info@SWWriters.com for more information.



A Different Take on Exercise

A couple months back an acquaintance who lived back east posted a video of herself with her physical fitness trainer running through some of his “special fitness techniques”.  There was a large tractor tire in the middle of a parking lot, and my friend was lifting it up and pushing it over.

Hmmm.  Turning over a tractor tire…and the area she was in was no where near a farm by the tall buildings in the background.

Doesn’t that seem silly?

When I told her I had a tractor out west here and a ranchette where she could actually do something practical while exercising she unfriended me on Facebook. Of course, she’d probably need to buy some jeans and cotton shirts instead of the bright pink and black work out clothes that probably cost more than my new goat.

I realize city folks spend all day sitting in cubicles with artificial lighting so they have to find ways of staying physically in shape to be healthy.  Like them, I was stuck in the D.C. area for two years in my job.  But I just can’t see paying money for the right to use a lot of machines – also indoors under artificial lighting – or having a private coach with “innovative” methods that look a lot like old fashioned farming.

During that time I found several state parks that needed help with keeping trails cleaned up or weeding gardens.  There was an animal rescue ranch not far away where I could help out and get to ride the horses.  I got a lot of exercise one day when the baby pigs got loose.  Of course, in winter I got the joy of shoveling snow out of my driveway, not something I do much here in New Mexico.

Every muscle group targeted in a gym is worked thoroughly by anyone who has a yard and garden.  Trimming bushes and trees works the forearms, biceps and hand muscles. Overhead swings with a pickaxe to break up clay soil is good for the abs.  Steering a loaded wheelbarrow around clamps the buttocks. Hoeing works the shoulders while shoveling dirt, piles of manure or snow is good for the calves.

The best part is that all this is done outside in the sun.  Not a lot of gardeners have vitamin D deficiency.  When you get to working on weed whacking the lawn or mulching the flower beds you lose track of time because your brain is engaged with details.  You don’t have to wear a headset while watching TV on your cell phone because running on a treadmill is incredibly boring.

Yards and gardens offer ongoing challenges and the delight of lovely flowers and fresh vegetables.



Re-using Mulch Bags

Do you like to garden or do yard work?

Recently I landscaped my front yard and in doing so purchased 80 bags of mulch, each of which contained 2 cubit foot of material.  Another 30 bags of garden soil was mixed with homemade compost for some new raised beds.

As I emptied each bag I thought to myself there really should be another use for these other than going into the recycling bin.  As it turned out I was right.  The mulch bags are about the same size as my kitchen trash can, and the smaller garden soil bags fit into the office and bedroom wastebaskets!

The trick to making good reusable trash sacks is to open the bags at the top – nick a corner and pull hard straight across, or use scissors to get an even tear. Once the first bag is empty, use it as storage for the rest of the bags.  Roll or wad them up and stuff inside.  I filled up three of the bags with the others and set them in my storage shed.

These bags are perfect to collect yard trash, and my husband uses them in his garage workshop.



Plastic Straws, Cups, and Pill bottles

The advantages of recycling have finally gotten through to most of the population, but before it is tossed in the recycle bin you might consider how daily  items could be reused first.  For example: plastic straws.  Many communities are banning local restaurants from automatically providing their customers with plastic straws because so many end up in landfills or floating in the ocean along with flimsy cheap plastic cups and lids.

A restaurant near me serves their beverages in sturdy plastic cups with strong lids and straws that frequently survive an unexpected drop on the ground.  These are the kind of cups you really want to keep around!  They used to refill these large cups for less than a dollar until Covid restrictions stopped that practice.  I have dozens squirreled away which I use at home whenever I plan to work out in the hot sun for a few hours.   They make great travel cups.

Other drink cups are just the right size to plant seeds in during February that will be set out in the garden come April.  All they need is a drainage hole.  I set them in the sunroom in big plastic boxes and usually have more than enough to share with friends and fellow gardeners.

People with medical issues are saddled with unrecyclable plastic prescription bottles in varying sizes.  The uses for them are legion!  Gardeners who collect seeds from year to year love that the amber colored plastic helps protect viability.

 

 



UNM Continuing Education

Rose Kern from Solar Ranch teaches for the University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education program and other venues.  Students from all her classes are welcome to have copies of her program materials.  Click on the link below to receive a .pdf covering the information from her class on Creating Microclimates for High Desert Gardening.

Microclimates UNM 2020

 

 

 

 

 



Book on Gardening Takes 1st Place!

 

Rose M. Kern’s book on Creating Microclimates for High Desert Gardening took first place in the Crafts division of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards.   This annual event is sponsored by the New Mexico Book Coop.   (http://nmbookcoop.com).  It has 48 categories of prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction and more.

This compilation is the result of years of experimentation while producing large quantities of fruits, vegetables and flowers in the New Mexico high desert.  It discusses how weather extremes can be modified with advance planning.

The book is available on Amazon.  Click Here

 



Solar Food Dehydration

Here in the Southwestern desert regions we are blest (cursed?) with abundant solar gain.  One of the many ways we can use this resource is though dehydration of vegetables, fruits and meats.

For centuries humans have dried their foods in order to preserve and use them during the winter months.  The knowledge of our ancestors combined with today’s research has given us safe and yet creative methods of continuing this long tradition.

Rose will be giving a presentation on preserving the harvest for the University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education series in October.  This will include basics of water bath canning, pressure canning, touched on how to dry fruits, vegetables, jerky and fruit leathers using various solar based or techno methods.

 


Solar Dehydration  Click this link for a PDF version of Rose’s presentation..

Check out the Solar Ranch Events tab to find out more information on upcoming presentations.



Becoming a Solar Chef

When I was a kid, every summer the TV news folks would choose a very hot day to go downtown, spread aluminum foil on the County Courthouse steps and crack an egg onto it.  They then proceeded to tell jokes about how hot it was.  I don’t ever remember the egg getting cooked–but the image stayed with me. 35 years later I saw my first Solar oven.  It was sitting on the ground and contained a nicely browning turkey.

Solar Cookers have made a splash all over the world in the last 20 years.  In many countries of Africa, there are villages that have little in the way of firewood for cooking,  Sun Cookers, International is a non-profit group that raises money to bring sun ovens made from foil covered cardboard with oven roasting bags to these areas.  A pot of rice and beans placed into this arrangement will cook food for the family without the   women having to spend hours searching for a few small sticks of firewood or dried dung.

There is a town just outside Mexico City wherein the women’s association has built a large solar oven.  Panadaria Solaria is the name of their bakery, which supplies most of the village’s bread.

  A simple solar oven is made from lining a shoebox with aluminum. Paint the outside of a quart canning jar Black.  You can put hotdogs or water or anything that needs warmed inside the jar. Place the jar inside the box and tilt it towards the sun.  On a sunny day it should only take 15 to 20 minutes for it to be ready.   There are many plans for building oven sized solar cookers from cardboard or wood, and there  are  several kinds of  solar  cookers  that are considered to be  serious appliances.

The All American Sun Oven built by Sunovens International is one such  appliance.  It has petal-like reflectors and  tempered glass doors.  It can reach 425 degrees in summer, and even in winter will cook the evening meal – as long as there is sun!  The beauty of this one is that it folds up quickly, weighs only 21 pounds and is easily transportable.  It can be used during camping when the forest service won’t even allow camp stoves.

It contains a temperature gauge and a suspended platform that keeps food upright even when the box is tilted to   gather maximum sunlight.

A recent innovation in solar cooking is the solar tube cooker.  A long metal trough in which you place meats or vegetables slides into an evacuated glass tube.  The tube is held in a shiny metal sleeve which catches the sun and focuses it on the tube.  Temperatures can exceed 400 degrees allowing foods to be fried or baked.   The GOSUN company makes these in several sizes.  Some are small and portable, others are larger and made to be set on a table.

 There are also several parabolic cookers on the market—or made by innovative individuals from a multitude of materials.  They boast curved surfaces which reflect light toward a pot suspended at the point where the light is focused.  These can achieve higher temperature, and are very good for frying.  These are not as easily portable as the box cookers, but can quickly boil your morning coffee!

Other alternative solar cookers can be quickly put together in an emergency, though some make practical alternatives for daily use as well.  If you have bright sunlight you can place food in a dark crockery pot with a lid, set it inside an oven bag, then surround it outside with a shiny car window shade aimed at the sun.    An easy way of heating up lunch on a sunny day is to set any container on the dashboard of your car.  Make sure the car is pointed south with the sun hitting the windshield and the windows rolled up.

Although most of us in the United States  don’t have the problems faced by the women in Africa, there are several advantages in using Solar Cookers.  It reduces the amount of gas or electricity we use with regular stoves – lowering the utility bill.  It reduces the amount of heat we generate when using conventional stoves indoors – so our air conditioning does not have to blow out the heat – again reducing the utility bills.

Another difference is the source of heat.  A standard oven’s heat is generated at the bottom of the oven.  The Solar Oven fully surrounds the food, which is why you do not end up with food that is burned on the bottom.   The disadvantages of a solar oven is that it takes more time and is weather dependent.  But this means that the slow cooking enhances the flavors.  There is also the fact that it’s just plain fun and the food tastes wonderful.

You can  treat it like a crockpot.  Take something frozen and put it in a clear casserole dish.  Set the dish into the solar oven before leaving for work in the morning and point it towards where the sun will be at around 1 pm.  During the morning hours the slant angle of the sun thaws the food.  As the sun climbs towards noon it begins to cook, then when the sun slides to the west the temperature lowers to where it isn’t cooking anymore but it is keeping warm.  When you come home from work a couple of hours later the casserole is thawed, cooked and tasty!

Another aspect of using a solar box cooker is its versatility.  It can be used to sterilize water in an emergency.  It can also be used to dehydrate vegetables or process jerky—though that requires lower temperatures.  There is more specific information on that option later in this book.

Sun ovens can go anywhere.  One hot august day I was camping in the mountains of northwestern New Mexico.  The danger of fire was high and no one was allowed to start fires or even use a propane stove.  Around noon I set my sun oven up with a pot full of rice, beans and veggies.  As the aroma drifted through the campground I saw a forest ranger wandering around to ensure the rules were being obeyed.  He followed his nose to my campsite.  He saw the solar oven and with a grin, just shook his head.  Of course, I invited him to stay for dinner.

I wrote The Solar Chef cookbook originally in 2003 because I could not find anything on the market that discussed the flexibility of a sun oven, nor the wide variety of foods you can make.  The book is not all encompassing—its purpose to defy the limitations that some people assume are part and parcel when you cook food without using electricity, gas or flame.

Whether you bake chocolate chip cookies, meatloaf, cakes, roasts, snacks, pizza, or just about anything else, the flavor of anything solar cooked is enhanced.  It is as though the touch of the sun adds an extra blessing  to your meals!

 

To view a powerpoint presentation on solar cooking click here:  Solar Cooking Presentation