By Nicole Easterday and Lisa Gasink

The most exciting thing about planning to keep chickens has to be selecting the breeds you will keep.  There are so many varieties to choose from: great egg layers, fryers, adorable little puffy things with fuzzy legs and giant majestic creatures.  We examine some of the choices with the pros and cons and include resources for SF Bay Area as well as some online options for those of you who live elsewhere.

Article TLTR?  We understand – you’ve got seedlings to water – skip straight to our awesome FARMcurious Breed Selector Chart.

We can’t tell you how many times a week someone tells us they’re getting chickens.  Everyone from school teachers to lawyers seems to be installing a backyard coop and there are so many questions.  What breeds are best for backyards, what kind of housing do they require, where can I find supplies?  Rather than answering the same questions over and over we thought it might make sense to answer these questions in a series of blog posts.  This post will explore breed options and resources; you can find our recent post about housing requirements here.

First, let’s talk about the four primary reasons people seem to keep backyard birds:

Four Reasons to Keep Backyard Chickens:

Can you guess which egg came from our free-ranging chicken and which came from the store?

1) Eggs – One taste of a farm-fresh egg and you’re hooked.  Most of us start out by standing in line at the farmer’s market every week at 10am, clutching our twelve dollars (!!) and hoping against hope our favorite farm doesn’t run out before our turn at the counter.  Been there.  It only took a few weeks in a row of missing out on River Dog Farm’s eggs before we started talking about keeping our own birds.

If this is your number one reason for keeping chickens, you’ll want to look for the strongest layers and might sacrifice some other traits in exchange for excellent laying habits (Rhode Island Red, anyone?)  Bonus: it’s nice to know the eggs you eat come from sustainably raised animals that are loved and cared for.

2) Meat - Admittedly fewer backyard flocks are destined for the dinner table, but don’t immediately discount this idea.  Given the conditions of industrial chicken raising facilities and the continued demand for poultry on the table, many people are turning to home meat production.

If this is your goal, you’ll want to look for birds that pack on the pounds early and have a largish size at maturity.  The great thing about raising your birds with dinner in mind is that it’s actually more sustainable in that you won’t have to worry about how to ‘dispose’ of any unwanted roosters that end up in your flock.  You can imagine how unsustainable it is for an enormous new population of backyard chicken owners to demand only hens when the birth rate is still 50/50 hens to roosters.  Don’t automatically assume you’re off the hook on animal cruelty just because your hens are only egg layers.  Just saying…

3) Compost/Gardening - Though most of us were raised thinking poop is something you want to avoid at all costs, gardeners and farmers know better.  Chicken manure is full of nitrogen, something that is often lacking in gardener’s best friend, the compost pile.  Without going into too much detail (we’ll save that for another post), you want to include equal parts ‘brown’ materials such as fallen leaves and animal bedding like straw with equal parts ‘green’ materials such as kitchen scraps, weeds and manure.  Without the correct balance the compost will either be too dry and not break down or will start anaerobic activity which will stink terribly.  Guess what??  The soiled bedding from your coop is the perfect mix of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’ – eureka!  Thank you chickens!

4) Companionship - What a delight to find that your useful little backyard breakfast-makers are also charming, relatively intelligent little creatures.  We so enjoy sitting in the yard watching them peck around that we call it “chicken TV”.  Chickens can even live harmoniously with your other backyard beasts like domestic dogs and cats.  Our favorite chicken ever used to spread her wings out and lay on the deck with the dogs – she had no idea she was a chicken.  What better way to teach your little ones (and yourself!) about where food comes from than to bring a little love into your life?

Now that you’ve decided you simply MUST have chickens, let’s discuss what characteristics you should be on the lookout for when making your selections. Because different varieties of chicken were bred for different purposes, we have many options to consider when choosing a breed.   Below are the top considerations for backyard flocks.  Refer to the FARMcurious Breed Selector Chart for a quick reference to see which breeds fit into which categories.

Three Considerations in Choosing Chicken Breeds:

1) Output (egg-laying frequency and meat production) – There are essentially three categories when it comes to output – layers, fryers (meat birds) and dual purpose.  If you’re raising chickens for eggs, you want a layer or a dual-purpose.  Choose fryers if you’ll be culling your flock for meat. 

2) Temperament (friendliness/sociability, noise level and tolerance of confinement)  – Just like dogs, some breeds are known for their friendliness, sociability and, yes, even trainability.  Similarly, some breeds are known to be noisier than others – in some cases this means they cluck happily and fairly quietly all day long, but in other cases they might squawk loudly at you and at each other all day long.  If you live in a densely populated area, this will matter more to you than if you live in a rural area so it may be something to keep in mind.  Finally, some breeds are much more tolerant of confinement than others.  If you plan on keeping your birds in a smallish coop and run you’ll want to choose appropriately.

That said, also just like dogs, you should keep in mind that there is variability between individuals.  Just because Buff Orpingtons are known to be friendly in general doesn’t necessarily mean yours will be.  And, on the other side of that equation, if a breed is known to be less friendly, raising it from a chick and showing it love and affection may result in a very friendly addition to your flock. We leave it to you to debate nature vs. nurture. We’re trying to stay neutral over here!

3) Aesthetics (breed markings and egg coloring) - Designer chickens came into fashion during the Victorian era when breeds were developed and classified for showing birds.  If you’re really into this type of thing you can totally geek out on the official markings of the breeds and their other characteristics.  You can find a fun list of chicken varieties complete with photos here.

You probably already know that different breeds are known for the coloring of their eggs but you may not know that each individual chicken has her own signature egg shape and color as well.  We won’t deny that showing off those gorgeous blue and green eggs are what drove us to choose to raise some Ameraucanas in our flock.  It’s just another way to distinguish your eggs from those sad, pale things at the grocery store.

In the end, we can’t tell you which chicks to take home but we’ll know you’ll have a fun time deciding.  For our part, we can tell you that Lisa has her eye on a Swedish Flower Hen, a Barred Rock and either an Easter Egger or a Buff (or Lavender) Orpington while Nicole (who already has Easter Eggers) hopes to add a Cuckoo Maran and a Barred Rock to the flock.  Happy hunting!!!

Where to Find Chicks in the SF Bay Area:

Bay Area Farm, Feed and Pet Stores

Pollinate Farm & Garden - (Oakland) A super rad new urban farm store in the Fruitvale district, they’re offering pre-order, straight run, hard-to-find heritage chicks starting in late April and through May.

BioFuel Oasis (Berkeley) The biofuel/farm store standby, their chick schedule is posted on their site.

Mike’s Feed and Pets (San Leandro) An all-purpose pet supply store in San Leandro carries some of the more common breeds like sex links, etc.

Concord Feed – (Dublin, Pleasant Hill, Concord)  This is where we got our first batch of hens and we were very happy with the results – the straight run came out 50/50 and the 90% accuracy birds turned out to be all hens.  They post their Chick Schedule online.

Half Moon Bay Feed and Fuel (Half Moon Bay) Chicks arrive every Thursday during the season and they update deliveries on their Facebook Page 

Wilson’s Feed & Supply Store (Napa) Phone Number: 707) 252-0316 – Show up early because they sold out of the breed we wanted within a few hours!!

About the Authors:

Lisa Gasink

Lisa is a Maine native who came to the Bay Area more than a decade ago to attend Stanford University. She can’t seem to get back to New England…the Bay Area just keeps its warm, sunny grip on her. She runs field and partner marketing for a high tech company on the peninsula and is currently obsessed with all things chicken and spends her spare time volunteering with FARMcurious. After her wedding in May she’ll have even more free time so she’s going to have to pick up a few more obsessions. Cheese-making, anyone?”

Nicole Easterday

Nicole is an Oakland resident, urban farmer and founder of FARMcurious who teaches urban homesteading classes and offers DIY food demonstrations at the homes of urbanites hoping to reconnect with their food.

Nicole has been growing vegetables in an urban setting for five years and is constantly discovering new ways to grow more food in compact spaces. Having kept chickens as a child, she now tends a small flock in her backyard in Oakland.  As part of her urban homesteading lifestyle, Nicole is mother to the most adorable baby boy ever, runs FARMcurious’ retail site and workshops, tends the garden and various animals and also manages to grow much of her family’s own produce, craft her own cheese, can seasonal produce and somehow (sometimes) blog about it all.

Please join FARMcurious in welcoming Lisa Gasink, our fabulous new intern and this week’s guest blogger.  This post is all about building a coop but you can follow Lisa as she goes through all the steps to owning chickens – from research, to building a coop from recycled wood, to finding chicks – at her blog caliperks.blogspot.com.

So you want to have chickens. Me too! I embarked upon this adventure at the beginning of February, researching in the evenings after work, on the weekends, any free time I had. I wanted to be as knowledgeable as possible before really jumping in to owning chickens, and especially before planning our coop and run. My fiance Erik, originally reluctant, was eventually won over by my overwhelming enthusiasm for the project. I’m sure you’re nodding. If I’ve learned one thing, it seems in most cases that one person is more enthusiastic while the other needs a little convincing.

Anyway, we live on the peninsula and our town only allows three hens but I want them to have a good life. Oddly, I had a hard time finding a singular place that listed all the needs of chickens and what purpose each part actuallyserved and since we’re building our coop ourselves I decided to compile it all into one blog post.

Let’s take a quick moment to review what chickens need to live happy lives in backyards. Then we’ll move on to some really interesting coop designs by a local team in Oakland.

A coop - you should know this one. This is the structure where the chickens will be secured at night so they are out of harm’s way from some of our huge neighborhood raccoons, feral cats, and any other animal that might think a chicken would be a tasty late-night snack.

An enclosed run - this is essentially a pen – enclosed on all sides in chicken wire, hardware cloth, or whatever product will protect the chickens from predators in the area. Be advised that, if you are like us and have large raccoons in your neighborhood, classic chicken wire may not be strong enough. Check out your local hardware store or pet & feed supply and talk to other chicken owners in your area. The run can be full human height, they can be a few feet tall, whatever works for your chickens, you and your overall design. Erik and I are planning to use hardware cloth (basically galvanized wire that’s in a 1/2″ x 1/2″ grid formation) because of the aforementioned huge raccoons in our ‘hood. We’ll build a 6′ tall run to make cleaning easier and to allow our girls to spread their wings to get up to an outdoor roost. Our hens will be given access to the run all day while we’re at work.

Square footage per hen - this varies greatly depending on who you ask: anywhere from 2 to 4 sq ft inside the coop and for the run anywhere between 8 and 15 sq ft. Erik and I will build a coop that provides each hen with ~4 sq ft of space inside, and 8 sq ft in the run. Our hens will also be allowed to wander around our big backyard (which is fully fenced) in the evenings before sundown and on the weekends when we’re home. They’ll eat our weeds, snack on some grass, hunt for snails, worms, etc.

Nesting Boxes - this is where they’ll lay their eggs. The general recommendation is one nesting box per 3-4 hens. We’ll have 3 hens, per the city’s ordinances, but we are going to build two nesting boxes. (Explanation: if we ever expand our flock, building two nesting boxes now, when we’re building the whole coop, would be easier than trying to retrofit a second nesting box down the road.) The nesting box should be at least 1 cubic foot, which is about the size we will build. It’s recommended to have an exterior door to access the nesting boxes so one can collect eggs with minimal disruption to the ladies.

Roosts - in the wild, chickens fly up into trees to sleep for the night. Roosts are essentially a branch inside the coop and, if so inclined, in the run. They are typically made out of 2″x2″, 2″x3″ or 2″x4″, or actual branches from trees. Apparently wooden dowels are too smooth for chicken feet to get good purchase. We’ll have one or two roosts inside the coop and one or two outside in the run – I found 2″x2″ at the salvage warehouse, so we’ll use that!

Pop Door - this is a little 1′x1′ door that goes from the coop directly into the run. We’ll have one!

Ventilation - chickens are messy and poop a lot, so I’ve heard. In order for their environments to stay dry and free of disease, their spaces need a lot of ventilation. We’ll have a lot of ventilation at the top of the coop near the roof and the pop door will be open every day while the girls are out in the run.

For humans – easy access to clean the coop and run - Erik and I have designed two big doors in the front of our coop to allow for easy access to all parts of the coop for cleaning and upkeep as well as easy access to the girls, in case there’s any issue. And again, why we’re building a tall run – easy to get in and rake it clean, etc.

Now on to design inspirations!

I was initially inspired by Just Fine Design/Build. These guys are really approaching coops with a fresh eye – a fun twist on classic designs, designs that easily fit into urban lifestyles, tree houses for chickens. Our three favorites are Log Cabin Coop, Chick-in-a-Box and Coopsicle. Someday we will build one of these.

Realistically, we knew this first design, the Log Cabin Coop, just shouldn’t be our first coop – that requires a LOT of notching, people! But, I love the concept and we both love the barn style front door and the sliding door at the nesting box, as well as the skylight they created with clear corrugated roofing. Unfortunately our coop (at least this first one!) will not have the barn door or the skylight, but will likely have the sliding door at the nesting box (where we retrieve the eggs) and the pop door (where the hens will access their run).

Chick-in-a-Box looks so airy and open – I love all the ventilation and the inverted roof to capture rain water for the hens. But it concerned me a little bit – this winter, we had freezing temperatures. Now, we are intending to get hens that will do just fine in colder weather, but we still want to make sure we provide a warm place and safe place for them to sleep at night. Chick-in-a-Box would have required storing a lot of extra paneling to cover all the open sides, although we could have redesigned it with more enclosed sides. Our takeaway was incorporating a lot more ventilation in our final design after seeing this design.

The Coopsicle just looks rad – what chicken doesn’t want to live in a tree house!? I really like that the ends angle out a bit (you can’t tell from this photo) but I mostly love the spiral staircase and all the windows. The downside for us is that the central 4″x4″ has to be dug in a few feet, and set in with concrete. Given that we don’t own our current house, we want a structure that is a little easier to move with us, whenever that may be. Sadly we won’t have a spiral staircase in our final design, but we did incorporate windows, which we probably would not have otherwise included.

After I read through the Just Fine Design/Build guys’ coop building book (from which these photos came and, yes, we own!), I started looking at “regular people’s” designs on Backyard Chickens. And wow, some people build some really awesome coops! The Hennebunkport (best name ever since I’m from Kennebunkport, Maine! I really want to know if this person actually lives in Kennebunkport), the Mid-Life Crisis, and others gave me lots of ideas.Then, somehow, I came across Heather Bullard’s blog post about the coop she and her husband designed and built (tho she openly says, he gets all the build credit).

Now, my friend nicknamed this one The Kentucky – which is what I now call it in my head. I love a lot about this coop – clean lines, storage space for feed and shavings, a run designed to look like part of the overall design, and a great attention to detail. When I initially came across this, I did not realize that Heather is a contributing editor for a couple different magazines, a photographer, the works. Once I figured that part out, it was no surprise that her family’s coop is this lovely. The downside of this design, for us (because she actually had the coop designs drawn up by an architect and they’re for sale) is that this is placed on a concrete footing (remember when I said if we move, the coop has to move?), cost more than $1000 to build, and her husband is clearly a master carpenter, at least by hobby – the finish work on this coop is gorgeous. It gave me LOTS of good ideas for our coop and run!

I’ll be posting more on our coop-building and other chicken adventures on caliperks.blogspot.com.  Check there for more information on our foray into coop design, building, and, eventually, our chicks.   Feel free to keep tabs on us as we go through all the steps to owning chickens – from research, to building a coop from recycled wood, to finding chicks!

More about Lisa Gasink:

Lisa Gasink is a Maine native who came to the Bay Area more than a decade ago to attend Stanford University. She can’t seem to get back to New England…the Bay Area just keeps its warm, sunny grip on her. She’s currently obsessed with all things chicken and spends her spare time volunteering with FARMcurious. After her wedding in May she’ll have even more free time so she’s going to have to pick up a few more obsessions. Cheese-making, anyone?”

While we’re not quite ready to hire paid help (someday!), we are ready to take on an official intern.  We’re thrilled to enter into this new phase of growth and we hope you’ll help us spread the word to find a good fit.  The description is posted below.  While we would prefer someone in the Bay Area, we may make exceptions for the right candidate.

Will you help us share our job description?

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FARMcurious Intern Description

Master the skills it takes to build a business from the ground up while learning about living a DIY lifestyle and meeting other interesting people.  FARMcurious is seeking an intern to help with day-to-day business tasks in exchange for hands-on training.  This is an unpaid part-time internship.  The candidate will work remotely and report directly to the founder/owner.

Key Responsibilities

Responsibilities may include some or all of the following:

Manage Social Media:

• Help develop monthly social media plan
• Post to online social networks such as Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook
• Seek partners to share blog posts on farmcurious.com
• Seek like-minded blogs and websites to approach for potential partnerships like giveaways and joint events
• Potential opportunity for blogging if it interests you

Research Products

• Locate and research new products for the FARMcurious online store
• Contact wholesalers and manufacturers regarding purchasing new products
• Attend local gift and trade shows to seek out new products
• Test products by using them

Assist at Festivals, Fairs and Educational Venues

• Help design booth or display space and signage
• Track logistics such as load-in times, volunteers, etc
• Attend events to help “hold down the fort” and organize volunteers
• Aid in training volunteers
• Locate and research relevant festivals and contact if appropriate

Build Partnerships

• Locate and research potential partners with similar goals
• Respond to partnership requests when appropriate

Administrative

• Help track FARMcurious inventory
• Re-order inventory when necessary

Required Skills/Experience

• Candidate must exhibit honesty, integrity and can-do attitude
• Must have excellent communication skills and enjoy working with the public
• Must have a strong command of the English language and exhibit solid written communication skills – blogging experience a plus
• Have a strong command of social media outlets such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter – proven history required
• Must exhibit strong computer skills including experience doing online research via Google
• Must be comfortable using: Word Press, Google Drive, Excel, Word, Constant Contact, Photoshop and PowerPoint or other editing software – Mac users preferred
• Must have access to your computer and internet service
• Must own a decent camera and know how to use the manual settings for photographing difficult settings from workshops to festivals and “still life” setups for products
• Genuine interest in urban homesteading, DIY food projects, etc preferred
• Must be available on weekends to assist at workshops
• Organizational skills a must
• Interest in retail and education will be helpful
• Creativity and design experience a plus!

Send cover letter and CV to info@farmcurious.com to apply.

About FARMcurious:

FARMcurious is an organization created to educate, inspire and equip urban homesteaders with an interest in producing their own food, preserving the harvest, reducing their environmental impact and eating seasonally and sustainably.

As a growing family-run business, we are striving to build up inventory of unique products for sustainable living as we increase our number of available workshops and classes.  In the next year we will triple our class offerings as well as our product inventory and need more hands and heads to accomplish those goals.

FARMcurious is a fun and inspirational place to work with a dedicated cast of characters and fun perks!

Did you know you can make your own fish emulsion fertilizer instead of buying it in the store?  Fish emulsion is an essential product for the organic and natural home gardener for years, proving its effectiveness in feeding the soil and plants with biologically available nutrients while increasing soil and microbe health.

This week we’d like to extend a special welcome to guest blogger Stephen Scott, co-owner of Terroir Seeds, a family owned and operated heirloom seed company that focuses on the “Cycle of Terroir”- from the soil, to the seed, to the food you eat, providing heirloom seeds, education and information for all phases of the cycle.  Stephen is going to teach us how to make our own fish emulsion for use as a fertilizer and foliar spray.  Read more about Terroir Seeds below the article and be sure to check out their website at www.underwoodgardens.com.  Now back to Stephen:

The main drawback to commercial fish emulsion is the cost and the smell. While we can’t do anything to help you with the fishy smell, we can help you make your own fish emulsion that will not only save you a lot of money in product and shipping costs, but just might make a better product than you can buy! This homemade fish emulsion will almost always supply more nutrients than commercially available, but also supplies much more beneficial bacteria from the brewing process. In order to ship, commercial emulsions have little to no active bacteria, because they make containers swell as they continue to grow!

All fish emulsions are good organic nitrogen suppliers, but they also supply phosphorus, potassium, amino acids, proteins and trace elements or micronutrients that are really needed to provide deep nutrition to your soil community and plants. One of the benefits of fish emulsion is that they provide a slower release of nutrients into the soil without over-feeding all at once. It is usually applied as a soil drench, but some gardeners swear by using it as a foliar fertilizer as well.

Adding seaweed or kelp to the brewing process adds about 60 trace elements and natural growth hormones to the mix, really boosting the effectiveness of the fish emulsion. The seaweed or kelp transforms the emulsion into a complete biological fertilizer. Beneficial soil fungi love seaweed. Dried seaweed is available at most oriental grocery stores.

To make your own, obtain a dedicated 5 gallon bucket for this project. Trust me; you won’t want to use it for anything else once you’re done! Buy 10 cans of herring type fish such as sardines, mackerel or anchovies. Sourcing these from a dollar store or scratch and dent store makes perfect sense, as you don’t care about the can and aren’t going to eat them. Fill the bucket half full of well-aged compost, aged sawdust or leaves, or a combination of all three. Add water to about 2 inches from the top, put in the cans of fish, rinsing the cans with the water to make sure you get every last drop of the “good stuff”. The juices or oils in the can will breed beneficial microbes and supply extra proteins. To supercharge the brew, add 1/4 cup of blackstrap molasses to provide sugars and minerals to the fermenting process. The sugars also help control odors. Add the chopped or powdered seaweed to the mix. If you need extra sulfur and magnesium, add 1 Tbs Epsom salts. Stir well and cover with a lid to control the odor, but not tightly as it will build pressure as it brews. Let it brew for at least 2 weeks, a month is better. Give the contents a good stir every couple of days.

Once it has brewed for a month, it is ready for use! There are a lot of ways to use this brew, so be creative. Some folks will strain off the solids, put them in the compost pile and use the liquid as a concentrated “tea” to be diluted with water. Others keep everything together and stir the mix well before taking what they need. What you have is a supply of bio-available nutrients in a soluble form. For a soil drench, use 2 – 3 Tbs per gallon of water and apply to the roots on a monthly basis during the growing season. 1 Tbs per gallon of water makes a good foliar fertilizer. Just make sure to apply it by misting during the cooler parts of the day, not drenching the leaves in the heat. Half a cup per gallon will give your compost pile a kick start.

This brew will keep for at least a year, but you might want to make fresh each season. If you need less than 5 gallons, halve or quarter the recipe. It will smell, so store it where the odor won’t knock you out. I don’t trust the “deodorized” fish emulsions, as to remove the odor, some component of the fish product was removed either physically or chemically and is no longer available as a nutrient.

More about Terroir Seeds:

Terroir Seeds was born from both Cindy and Stephen being involved for almost 20 years in environmental education, habitat restoration, Holistic Resource Management in both grassland and rangeland improvements with several local ranches, as well as studying the impact of development and loss of agriculture on the health of soils and how to restore their biological activity and vitality. Their personal home garden has served as a test bed for over 14 years in learning to adapt the lessons learned in rangeland management and soil restoration to the home garden.

Cindy and Stephen both walked away from full-time jobs in 2008 to pursue their dream that was Terroir Seeds; a company that not only provides quality garden seeds, but helps customers improve their gardens and abilities with a wealth of information not found anywhere else. Early on, realizing that seeds were only one link in the chain of healthy food led to the model of providing not only the best seeds for the home garden, but also the knowledge needed to improve the soil for superior produce and recipes on how to prepare this treasure of home-grown food.

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Is fish emulsion a little too “ripe” for your taste?  Try Bu’s Brew Biodynamic Compost Tea Bags.  

A Certified Biodynamic liquid foliar (just add water!) chock full of microbial activity for all your flowers, veggies, shrubs, trees and grasses. Derived from the best recipe known to man to restore your plant’s vitality, this tea will make your plants go insane! They will LOVE it, and even better, love YOU for it! Contains all the preparations, plus some extra love! Demeter Certified.

4 single-use teabags; each teabag makes approximately 1-2 gallons of tea.

Eat Real Fest 2011

Many of our followers have expressed interest in volunteering at our events – and for that we’re incredibly grateful!  We do several large events every year and it takes a lot of hands to pull it off.

One of our busiest events of the year is coming up – Eat Real Fest in Oakland – and we’ll need a good number of dedicated volunteers so if you’re interested in volunteering read the details below then shoot us an email to be added to our volunteer list.

FARMcurious Booth Eat Real Fest 2011

 

Dates and Times:

• Thursday, Sept 20 – 5-9:30pm is set-up day.  We’ll set up in the evening at Jack London Square for those of you who have day jobs.  The benefit of helping this day is that you won’t have to take any time away from the actual event to work.  We’ll be moving boxes and hanging installations, all based on a prepared design.  Bonus points if you have a truck!!

• Friday, Sept 21 – 11:30am – 9:30pm  If you’re a people person and love to talk to others about fun things like keeping chickens, making cheese, wine, beer, or sauerkraut or growing your food, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are for you!  The festival runs from 1-9pm on Friday but we’ll need to be there a little early to set up and stay a little late to secure the booth.   I’d like to ask all our Friday/Saturday/Sunday volunteers to commit to either a four-hour shift or two 3-hour shifts.  I know it’s a lot to ask, but I hope it’s so much fun that you’ll want to keep talking to people at the booth about homesteading goodness!  You’ll have plenty of breaks to go enjoy the rest of the festival, eat and have bathroom breaks during lulls.  It’s important to note that you will likely be standing most of the day.  It’s exhausting, but exhilarating.
• Saturday, September 22 – 9:30am – 9:30pm The festival runs from 10:30am – 9pm on Saturday but we’ve got some overlap time for set-up.  See Friday’s notes for details.
• Sunday, September 23 9:30am – 7pm - The festival is open from 10:30am – 5pm and then we’ll need help packing up and moving everything back to Oakland.  With any luck we’ll have much less to move back than we had to move there but we’ll still need help lifting boxes into the car, driving it back to Oakland and unloading it into our garage.

FARMcurious Garden Display at Eat Real Fest 2011

I’ll be looking for people with an earnest interest in homesteading.  Some experience in the areas of canning, gardening, cheesemaking, pickling, fermenting (and of course backyard animals!), etc will definitely help but I’ll take enthusiasm over years of experience any day.  I’ll also be looking for good workers – people who actually want to be there in the booth chatting up visitors and learning about products.  Obviously honesty and trustworthiness is a big deal because we’ll be dealing with money and products plus you’ll be a representative of FARMcurious for the weekend.

Rewards!

Despite the long days, it’s a ton of fun and in addition to taking home a fun Eat Real Fest gift bag (full of treats, coupons and other fun stuff), FARMcurious volunteers will earn FARMcurious products based on how long they’re there.  Each of our volunteers will receive $6 in product for every hour they donate to help.  For example, someone who works a four-hour shift will receive $24 in product.  The best part is that it’s so much FUN!

Welcome to our guest blogger Erica Strauss who joins us from her blog NW Edible Life, one of our favorite urban gardening/simple living blogs.  I’ve admired Erica’s writing and work from afar but when I saw her post on using reCAP to make a DIY fermenting crock from a simple mason jar, I knew I not only needed to carry reCAP in the store, but I also needed Erica to share her post with the FARMcurious crowd!  We’re happy to host her clever fermenting crock article here:

You can spend a lot of money on specialized pickling crocks. Go ahead, be my guest. You’ll learn all about how your $25-$200 is buying you an ideal anaerobic environment in which to nurture your precious anaerobic bacteria…blah, blah, blah.

Me? I don’t need another unitasker in my kitchen. I like to be able to use a few things – bowls, food processors, knives, mason jars – in a variety of flexible ways to achieve my goals. And this isn’t because I have a teeny, tiny kitchen, it’s just that one trick wonders don’t woo me.

So here’s how to turn any mason jar into a damn fine Pickl-It style fermentation crock for about $10, or way less if you already have a reCAP Mason Jar lid (which you should, because they rock and are definitely not unitaskers).

To DIY a very serviceable lacto-fermentation crock, you will need:

• 1 airlock with a rubber stopper found here for a mere $2.75
• 1 reCAP Mason Jar Cap (Wide month lids are coming soon!) $6.99
• 1 Mason jar  in an appropriate size to hold your ferment (you totally already have this, right?)

Step One:  Get your supplies together.  You can purchase the airlock and stopper right here on farmcurious.com and you can purchase the reCAP lid here.

Step Two: Once you receive your loot put your airlock, stopper and ReCAP Mason Jar Lid together in this order:

Viola! Now any mason jar is a fermentation crock. Seal off your ferment from nasty aerobic beasties.

Pat yourself on the back for the $15 or more you just saved. Don’t you love multi-taskers?

By: Erica Strauss, Northwest Edible Life.

Read more about Erica Strauss on her blog Northwest Edible Life and check out her Facebook page here.

My very favorite Bay Area gardening book is Golden Gate Gardening, a work of genius written by Pam Peirce.  I love the book so much that when I speak to serious SF Bay Area gardeners and find that they don’t own it I’m shocked.  I reference it anytime I plant something new and frequently before harvesting a new crop.  If you’re growing veggies here in our climate, I consider it a must-have, which is why I’m going to give one away this month.

Here’s why you need Golden Gate Gardening:  The climate in the San Francisco Bay area is unlike any other in the US.  If you’ve ever tried to plant in your Bay Area garden based on the advice on the back of a seed packet, you might have an idea of why a book like this could be helpful.  Not only does the book list important things to know about seed germination, area-specific pests and harvest tips, it also details when to plant for our area and lists varieties the author has found to be successful here.

Here’s how to win it:  All you have to do is leave a comment to this post with your most compelling garden question, best Bay Area gardening tip, funniest/strangest garden story, favorite gardening old wives’ tale or anything else you think might amuse/delight us.

Comment as many times as you like in as many of the above topics as you please and we’ll choose one winning comment from the batch.  More comments obviously give you more opportunities to win the prize.

We’ll accept entries through Monday, April 30th at 6pm pacific and we’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 1st.

Thanks for playing and good luck!

Gorgeous hand-made fermenting crock

Fermentation is an age-old practice that may date back to as many as 12,000 years ago during the Paleolithic period.

That said, it’s a practice that holds as much value today as it did thousands of years ago.  Not only is fermentation a time-honored way to preserve the harvest or create a mind-altering beverage, it’s also a healthful and natural way to boost the nutritional value of the food.

History:

According to Sandor Katz the author of “Wild Fermentation”, early methods of fermentation may date back to as early at the Paleolithic era, 12,000 years ago based upon evidence found in cave paintings.  Historians tend to agree that tea has been fermented in China for at least 3,000 years, possibly longer.  Ancient Mayas fermented honey and used it as an enema and cacao beans have been fermented in South America as long as 2,600 years ago.

It’s clear fermentation has been popular cross-culturally for thousands of years but it wasn’t until the mid-1800′s when Louis Pasteur identified bacteria that scientists really began to understand what was happening during fermentation.  During Roman times, Pliny the Elder attempted to explain fermentation as spontaneous generation, or something that just “magically” appeared under the right circumstances, much like (sorry for this analogy) maggots in meat or rats in grain.  Despite their lack of understanding for how it worked, over thousands of years, societies discovered the immense nutritional benefits of fermentation.  In 1770, Captain James Cook was actually recognized for preventing scurvy over the spam of a 27-month trip at sea by feeding 60 barrels of kraut to his men!  It was the perfect at-sea sustenance, healthful and well-preserved, though I have no doubts that the last serving of kraut was probably a bit funky!

Thanks to Pasteur, we now know that fermentation is the action of micro-organisms on plant or animal matter.  Many food items from everyday goods to luxury items are fermented.  Here is a partial list of common fermented foods, some of which may surprise you:

Chocolate
Cheese
Bread
Coffee
Wine
Beer
Miso, soy sauce
Kimchi, pickles & sauerkraut of course

Culture:

Many cultures are known for their own specific fermentations and palatability is not necessarily agreed upon across cultures.  For example, sauerkraut is very common in Germany, while Kimchi is the spicy Korean version of fermented cabbage.  In Sweden fish is treated with lye then fermented for several weeks to create the traditional lutfisk, a delicacy many Americans would simply rather do without.  The slimy Japanese fermentation natto is just beginning to gain traction in the San Francisco Bay Area, thanks to some local natto small-scale producers and restaurants.  The French could do without natto but rather salivate over their own bizarre fermentation in the form of gym-sock-scented cheese.  And anyone whose ever walked a night market in Taiwan is familiar with the pervasive, sickening smell of stinky tofu, a delicacy to be enjoyed by only the most trained palate.  Fermented fish sauce may date back to the 7th Century B.C and even catsup started out as a fermented food according to this Smithsonian article.

In some ways, I think it’s refreshing to know that in this globalized world there are still things done in some cultures that totally gross out other cultures.  According the Katz’ book, Annie Hubert, the former director of France’s National Scientific Research Center was quoted in Slow Food International’s periodical as saying,  “The concept of ‘rottenness’ belongs to the cultural rather than the biological sphere.”  She added, “The term defines a point where a food becomes unsuitable for consumption according to criteria associated with taste, presentation, and the concept of hygiene in different human societies.”  The memory of a little Taiwanese lady gobbling down stinky tofu with relish while I gagged into my sleeve has me convinced she’s onto something.

Nutrition:

While some fermentations are only a stage in the process before cooking the item such as is the case with chocolate and bread, other ferments are best served raw in their most alive and nutritious stage, such as miso, yogurt and sauerkraut.  Though these items are frequently pasteurized commercially, making them at home can be a cost-effective way to enjoy them while retaining their nutritive qualities.

Here are several of the many benefits of consuming unpasteurized fermented foods:

Micro-organisms in fermented foods help pre-digest our food into a form of nutrients our bodies can absorb.  For example, soybeans are fairly indigestible in their raw form though fermentation renders them much more easily digestible.  Similarly, many people lack the enzymes in the their body to digest the lactose in milk, though after transforming into lactic acid by making yogurt renders it digestible.

Increased nutrition – fermentation creates new nutrients like B vitamins like B12, otherwise unavailable from plant sources and very important to nutrition, especially for vegans and vegetarians

Human bodies host 100 trillion bacteria.  Because microorganisms present in live, fermented foods colonize our intestines with digestion-friendly bacteria, the introduction of a more dangerous strain of bacteria becomes less dangerous.  The ‘friendly’ bacteria stake their claim in your body and are fairly unfriendly to anything else that attempts to take over.  Dangerous bacteria are generally attacked and destroyed before they have an opportunity to do much harm.  In this way, our immune systems are constantly trained and primed to fight unfriendly invaders.

Food Preservation:

As alluded to above, fermentation has been used as a common method of food preservation cross-culturally for a very long time.  The process of fermentation may produce either alcohol (in the case of wine), lactic acid (in the case of sauerkraut) or acetic acid (in the case of vinegar), all of which are natural preservatives, allowing food to be stored for a longer period of time before refrigeration became common.

Are you convinced yet that fermentation is the secret to a delicious scurvy-free life?  So how hard is it to start fermenting at home?

SO EASY!  Here’s the gist, and i don’t mean to be cute, but it really is this simple: cut up food and add salt.  Wait a week.  Eat.  Seriously.  That is all (mostly).  Just in case you don’t believe me, though, you can find a recipe for simple sauerkraut here.

Fermentation line-up

Fermenting cabbage into a cultural delicacy such as sauerkraut or kimchi is an age-old practice that is still appreciated today; indeed is experiencing a renaissance of sorts.   The good folks at Cultured in Berkeley plus the popularity of a class we’re teaching at Workshop in SF on April 28 can attest to this new-found love of sour things.  How could we help but be inspired to write this post on how to make delicious fermented kraut and kimchi?

Perhaps you read our earlier post about fermentation and the benefits of raw, fermented foods or maybe you’ve just always known you love kraut with your dogs.  Either way, home fermenting is way easier than you think, is a project that can be ignored for weeks, and yields delicious results!

While it’s true that the basis of fermenting is adding salt to cut up meat or produce, submerging under brine then weighting and waiting, there are lots of ways to finesse the process to yield superior results.  Here are our recommendations.

Some tools you’ll need and others you’ll want:

• 

  Gorgeous hand-made fermenting crock

  Fermentation Vessel – fermentation can happen in almost any type of wide-mouthed container.  We love this gorgeous hand-made crock, created by an American artist and endorsed by Sandor Katz himself, but don’t limit yourself to just the beautiful receptacles.  You can easily use a wide-mouthed glass mason jar, a deep dish or even a plastic food-grade bucket, though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the risk of BPA-leaching when using plastic.  For a simpler and more economical option, check out this inexpensive DIY fermenting set made from  a mason jar and ReCAP lid.

• Sharp knife or mandoline – I personally think that finely chopped cabbage and other produce make the best kraut so make sure your chef’s knife is sharp or you have a nice mandoline, which make things easier as long as you can avoid chopping your own fingers off.
• 

  Tamper for packing cabbage down tightly

  Tamper  - This is a tool you’ll use to firmly pack down your kraut, drawing out its natural juices and submerging it under the brine.  It’s not totally required since we assume you can make your own personal tamper out of a fist but this is a tool I find incredibly handy in most cases and actually quite necessary when you’re fermenting in wide-mouthed mason jars which you can’t fit a fist into without recruiting a child (and who wants their fingers in your food?).

• Follower and weight – a follower an object that fits within your fermenting vessel to hold the kraut submerged under the brine.  it can be fancy like the one that comes with [our hand-made crock] or it can be humble like these smaller jars filled with water (the weight) which we’ve set into our larger fermenting jars.

Cabbage bound for greatness

Sauerkraut Recipe:

Ingredients:

5 lbs cabbage and/or other add-ins (see below for add-in suggestions)

3TB sea salt or pickling salt

Process for Sauerkraut:

1. 1. Slice cabbage and other produce to the thickness you prefer (thin is traditional)
2. 2. Sprinkle salt in layers as you go.
3. 3. Pack into a crock and press down to extract juices
4. 

   Thinly sliced kraut is traditional

   4. Weight the crock

5. 5. Press every few hours to extract juices
6. 6. Add additional salt water (1TB salt to 1 cup water) after 24 hours if the juice doesn’t fully cover the produce
7. 7. Cover with cheese cloth to keep out flies and dust then store out of the way at room temperature.
8. 8. Wait – taste after about a week.  You might prefer it after 4 weeks or more!  Cooler temps ferment more slowly than warmer temps and over time water may evaporate to the point where you want to add more salt water to keep the cabbage submerged.
9. 9. Eat or refrigerate once its reached your preferred level of sourness.  Fermentation will show down, though the flavor will continue to mature even while refrigerated.  You can store this way for months on end.

Some tasty additions to kraut:

Add apple and ginger to kraut for a fresh zing

• Mixed red with green cabbage
• Apple
• Ginger
• Beets
• Onions or leeks
• Wine
• Caraway seeds
• Seaweed (cut up small and soaked in warm water at least 30 min)
• Turnips
• Anything you want!

A delicious farm-fresh egg

It’s indisputable that free-range and farm-fresh are the best type of egg you will ever eat.  With their steep, rich yolks, orange as a midwestern sunrise and their thick whites that don’t run across the pan, they astonish the newly indoctrinated.  The variety of colors heritage breeds lay can take your breath away before you’ve even cracked the thing open.

If the appearance isn’t enough to convince you of the superiority of a backyard egg, fresh eggs also boast a flavor like no other -rich and almost sweet at the same time with none of the heavy, slightly off flavor of your run-of-the-mill grocery store egg.

Best of all, when you’ve raised the chickens who laid the eggs yourself (or even met the farmer who did), you know they’re fresh and contaminant free.  No salmonella recalls here, friends.  Only freshly-laid goodness.  If you don’t want to simply take my word for it, you can read what the NY Times had to say this week about the sacred backyard egg.  Once it’s reached the Times it’s no longer hippie BS, it’s practically mainstream gospel.

So what’s not to love, especially three days away from Easter.  With the longer days and spring weather your girls are probably just getting back into a heavy laying pattern and you’re flush with eggs!  Just think about all the Easter eggs you can hard-boil and dye then all the deviled eggs you can make with the leftovers.

Except that you still have to peel the damn things.  If you’re new to the freshest of the fresh eggs you might not even know this horror yet.  How bad can it be, you’re thinking.  Just wait…just wait.

Gorgeous eggs fresh from the coop - now what??

To understand why a fresh egg is so difficult to peel we must first understand why store eggs are so easy to disrobe.  According to the USDA, an egg may be sold up to 45 days after it’s packaged as long as it remains in refrigeration.  This means that the eggs you’re used to buying in the store may be a month old or more.

Because eggshells are permeable, over time air will begin to pass through the eggshell.  As time goes on the egg will begin to develop small air pockets between the shell and the white.  This is why you can tell the freshness of the egg by checking to see whether it floats or sinks in water.  A floating egg has had time for more air to enter the shell, meaning it’s older; a sinking egg is much fresher with few to no air pockets.  This is also why an older egg from the store is quite easy to peel after boiling – the air pockets just under the shell allow the membrane to separate quite easily from the white.

Now back to your fresh backyard eggs.  Because they haven’t been sitting for a month (probably!), air hasn’t moved through the shell to cause pocketing.  Therefore, when you try to peel your eggs, white will peel away along with the shell and membrane causing you innumerable anxieties.  The flavor would be divine if you could just get to those eggs without completely shredding them to pieces.  So much for that beautiful tray of deviled eggs you envisioned sprinkling with paprika just like Aunt Martha used to.

Never fear though – I have found the lost secret to flawlessly peeling a super-fresh egg.  A quick internet search for a solution yields tons of people suggesting you add baking soda to the boiling water when you cook your eggs, claiming the higher pH will help the shells come off more easily.  I tried many, many variations of this trick to no avail – it was no match to those super-fresh hard shells.

Enter science.  Heated objects tend to expand and cooled objects tend to contract.  Using this tidbit of knowledge you can actually trick your eggshells into peeling off like an old retired store egg.  You can find full instructions for my trick here.

What’s your favorite thing about farm-fresh eggs?  Do you have a favorite way to prepare them?

Happy Easter – enjoy that egg glut!