Ulla Bisgaard

Timothy Norton wrote:

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:Now that we have a freeze dryer, that’s how I preserve my eggs

Forgive my ignorance, but I can't figure it out in my head how the process might look. Do you crack eggs into a vessel, freeze dry them, and grind them into a powder? Is it more of an all day event or an afternoon task to process a whole bunch?

Hope you don't mind all the questions, I never thought of the viability of a freeze dryer until you mentioned baking mixes and feel like I had a eureka moment.

It’s simple really. Each tray can handle 12 eggs and there are 5 trays, so one load can handle 60 eggs. The eggs has to be whisked together before you put them in your trays, since egg whites mostly disappear when frozen, it works better to just whisk them.
The machine has several settings, so you can put non frozen items in and use the flash freeze part, or you can put the trays in a freeze and pre freeze them. If you do that, you can skip the freezer part of the process.
In the drying process, the trays are heated and the vacuum pulls the water out as it defrosts. It then sticks to the drum, which is freezing cold. That way things are dried.
To rehydrate 1 eggs, you mix 2 tablespoons of powdered eggs with 2 tablespoons of water. When you make baking mixes, make sure to add this liquid to the amount of water your recipe calls for.
When the eggs come out of the FD they are in powdery brigs, that are easily ground into a powder.
With the abundance of food we grow here, it has become essential for me. Below I have added pictures of some of the things I have made with it.
lemonade (freeze dried Meyer lemons powdered. Mixed with powdered sugar.
Instant sweet potato mash in 3 flavors, several types of flours too from pumpkins, squash, cassava/yuca, and sweet potatoes.
I also freeze dry orange and lemon juice, and freeze dry tangerines, and other fruit.
I make instant flavor/food colors by freeze drying juice from berries and other fruits, and then grinding them into a powder.
It also makes the best garlic powder, and dried herbs, since you don’t loose essential oils with this method.
Lastly it allows me to freeze dry and store sour dough starters and kefir grains, since you can set the drying temperature to 95F. The low temperature keeps the yeast and bacteria alive, and I don’t have to worry that I kill my starter, by forgetting about it.

The first thing we tried was freezing the eggs. We did not like that. The eggs tasted strange. Then we tried waterglassing with lime, and it’s okay, but the lime makes the shells brittle so they break if we move a bucket. Now that we have a freeze dryer, that’s how I preserve my eggs. It’s fast and easy, plus as a bonus, I can use them to make bags of baking mixes. Right now, I have about 200 eggs preserved for the winter break.

Tina Wolf wrote:Well, it depends how natural you want your fountain. You're already going to be using electricity from solar or the house for the pump to circulate the water. The water will need to be moved through the rocks via a pipe of some sort. The basin at the bottom can be a big rock that is concave enough to hold enough water to run your pump. It can also be some other container. There are pond supply stores or other places that sell something if that's the way you want to go.

Once you find a suitable base, you can dig a space for it and secure it. The pump can be placed in the container and rocks stacked above the container to the side-ish so you can put your plants in there. Run your hose/pipe through the rocks as you stack them. If you want multiple water outlets then use T's to run additional waterfalls out the different stacked rocks.

There are different ways to connect the rock in a more permanent manner but they aren't so organic. Stacking the rocks will work if you have some flat surfaces on them for stability.

Thank you so much for your input. I already have the solar for the electric part. I will see if I can find a pond supply shop to find a base. There are several reasons I want to have it in the forest garden. It will of course look and sound good, but my bees really need a water source from July through October, and so does many other insects and birds.
We do have a bird bath, bit the hummingbirds are having difficulties drinking from it.
We tried doing a regular bird bath with a sprinkler fountain, but it runs dry too fast (within 12 hours), so we need something larger, that we don’t have to fill every day. There isn’t room for a pond, so I figured a smaller but deeper pond base with stones stacked on top and a water fall from the top. If I put in plants between the stones and small lotus or similar leaves on the pond surface, there should be enough options for the insects and birds to get water.

As you can see, I have made significant changes to the content of the food forest garden. There are several reasons for this, the biggest one, that we lost an avocado tree, an orange tree and our passion fruit vines. Since we had an arborist there to remove them, I also asked them to remove the purely ornamental banana cluster, that was taking up a lot of space.
I am going to move our lavender from the backyard to the FFD, since they have grown too big to stay where they are. We are also digging up our cluster of bananas, and dividing them up, so they can grow better, plus I bought an ice cream banana tree. They are going in where we used to have our mulberry tree. We had to move the mulberry, because it was too close to our septic tank. The mulberry was moved into the space where we removed the dead orange tree.
Where the avocado used to be, we are planting a cashew tree and 3 different pineapple shrubs. I bought three different ones, to see which one we like best.
Where the ornamental banana cluster used to be, we are planting Coffe and tea plants, plus pigeon pea to give them shade. We are also planting a cardamom shrub and grains of paradise in that area. In the place where the banana cluster was, we are planting a Surinam cherry shrub, and we are planting a Bahama cherry tree next to the cashew, with shampoo ginger underneath.
Where the passion fruits used to be, we are planting black pepper vines and long pepper vines. By the septic tank we are also planting 2 gooseberry bushes, and more blackberries.
Lastly I have planted artichoke, in the area where we also have rock roses and an apple tree. I can’t wait to see the final result, and hope it all works out.  Some of the plants aren’t arriving until April, but we do have some already, in the grow room together with our warm season starter plants.

Does anyone have a plan for how you build a stone fountain?
What I would like, is stones stacked together, with water coming out of the top, ending in a container at the bottom, where I want to grow lotuses. My bees love drinking water this way. They land on the leaves and drink, and sometimes bumble bees will take a nap there. I tried doing it with bamboo, but the bamboo cracked because of the desert climate. I would also like the bottom container to be deep, potentially half buried, to it can hold more water.
I have found some online, but they start at a thousand dollars, which is too expensive for me.
I also like the idea, and filling holes between the stones with moss and other humidity loving plants.
So, something similar to the picture below, but larger and with a basin at the bottom.

G Freden wrote:My ducks like campanula (an edible ornamental) and chicory, will have a nibble at lettuce, but otherwise they leave my vegetables alone, so they--unlike my chickens--get unsupervised free range through the garden frequently.  

So mine don't eat a lot of greens;  they keep the grass trimmed but I think they are much more motivated by bugs and slugs.  Maybe yours need more bugs?  

I actually grow a lot of chicory and dandelion greens. Didn’t know ducks likes them, so I gave them to the chickens. I have more, so I will definitely try that.
We can’t free range any of our livestock. We have too many predators since we live close to a national park.

E Sager wrote:Our ducks love Asian greens. Especially giant mustard greens. Most Asian greens are easy to grow and have low day light requirements, meaning you grow many of them in partial shade. They also love onion greens, so we give them scallion tops when we can.

If you want rich, deep colored yolks, you can explore sprouting grains. We provide a third of their feed in the form of sprouts and that makes all the difference in the quality of their eggs. Especially in winter time.

I actually already grow a lot of Asian greens, especially the giant mustard greens. They have self seeded all over my garden. I will also see if I can sprout some grains for them. Thank you for the advice

Jay Angler wrote:My ducks like Napa cabbage. It seems to be soft enough they can "chew" it, which they can't manage with green head cabbage.

They will also eat lettuces, but most of those aren't all that high in nutrition.

If you want better yolks, I wonder if you broke up dandelion flower whether they'd eat them?

We soak wheat berries for a day and feed that to our ducks to help with their B-vitamins. I wonder if you can grow Flax seed in your climate, as that is recommended for chickens, so it might help ducks?

They have a standard duck feed they eat, so vitamins are covered. I just want to give them more greens. I have been thinking about growing duckweed and dumping those in their pool (they have a large one), and maybe they will eat that. I actually grow more lettuce than we can eat, so I will try that. Dandelions don’t grow well here. I have tried it many times, and are trying again this year with a shade cloth. I wish I had knows about the Napa cabbages. I grew 70 pounds this year, but it has been processed. Maybe I can rehydrate some of what I freeze dried, and see if they like that.
Thank you so much for the help.

What food can I grow for my ducks?
We raise both chickens and ducks on our homestead, and I have noticed, that chicken yolks are more yellow than the yolks our ducks produce. I am pretty sure, that it’s because I am having trouble figuring out what food to grow for them.
It’s easy with the chickens, since they eat pretty much anything.
Their diet, while supplemented with a standard feed, exists of whatever greens I have available depending on the season. Right now they are eating, cabbage, collard greens, the tops from radishes, beets, grass with seeds, herbs like mint, lettuce and even nettles. Later in the season they will eat,  grubs, sweet potato greens, fruits, pumpkins, collards, squash and all year round kitchen scraps.
The only thing I can find, that the my ducks will eat, are carrot tops.
What do you recommend I grow, for them to get a more variated diet?

Tereza Okava wrote:That's interesting, Ulla. I have pigeon peas and they're a good crop, they tolerate drought and nobody seems to bother them. Good for green peas and dried beans (green peas are a pain to shell but worth it for eating) and the rabbits enjoy the foliage.

Our plan is to use them as a feed for our chickens and rabbits. Feed has gotten so expensive now, so I have started growing things that makes a good feed for them, since we have the space for it.