Lee Einer

Alex Ojeda wrote:I have access to a load of lemon peel for when I make my organic lemon juices and cleanses. Is there anything that can be done with these that could fit under the heading of Permaculture? Realize that these have been put through a 2 ton press and are not pretty anymore. I made candied peels one time, but that's just silly amounts of sugar. Currently I have a 55 gallon barrel that is composting. If they can compost just sitting in a barrel (it's an experiment). I sometimes dig a hole and bury a bucket full. Any other ideas or experiences you could share with me?

Marinate the peels in vodka for at least four days. Discard peels and sweeten resulting infusion with simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar, boiled) to taste. Voila, limoncello!

If you are a teatotaller you can forgo the vodka, and marinate the lemon peels in vinegar for a month before discarding the peels. The vinegar, infused with the lemon peel oil, is a good general purpose household cleaner.

It may be urban legend but I have heard that citrus peels don't compost well.

I am in the process of organizing a simple workshop on how to build a tin-can rocket stove and a 16 brick rocket stove. I would like to organize, down the road, a rocket stove mass heater workshop, but I have no idea how to make that happen. Can anyone who has successfully organized a rocket stove mass heater workshop advise me? What were the costs, and how did you attract an expert to give the workshop?

Suzy Bean wrote:
There is an article in the recent Backhome Magazine (Sept/Oct 2011) on Curing Meat at Home, with a subtitle: “A warmer climate doesn’t matter if you try our curing technique.” They use an old freezer chest with a temperature regulator, set to 32 degrees F. They make a brine with noniodized salt, and sometimes brown sugar. They cover the meat in the brine in sealed buckets or ziplocks, and leave it for a week or two, depending on how thick the meat is. You can then smoke the cured meat. They say: “Properly cured and smoked bacon will keep without refrigeration, but because it is salty enough to do so, it needs to be soaked in plain water overnight before cooking.” You can use this method for any kind of meat, such as in making corned beef.

I brine my bacon and corned beef in ziplock bags in the fridge. Tasso ham gets cured so quickly it doesn't even need refrigeration the way I do it.After smoking, it will also be fine without refrigeration.

Freem wrote:
It is a tribble, obviously! 

I think I just heard it bidding 1500 quatloos on the newcomer.

kazron wrote:
slightly related and may not help...
when I was at a permaculture project a couple of years ago the dishwashing detergent was made from a combination of wood ashes and water that had orange and lemon peels soaked in it for a few days at a time.  this soaking water was a continuous cycling of peels, as after a week or two a peel would begin to mold in the hot climate.  i do not know the science behind it.  perhaps water is adequate to draw out whatever qualities you seek.

Being an oil, it's likely not water soluble. BUT wood ashes in water release KOH, potassium hydroxide, AKA lye. The lye will bind with the oils to make soap. This is how they made soap in the old days, with lye derived from wood ashes, reacted with a fat such as lard.

I can get 140 acres here in northeastern New Mexico for $85,000.

It's badly overgrazed ranchland in the middle of nowhere, but it is cheap.

Good riverbottom farm land with water rights costs much more.

Jeff Millar wrote:
Found this, it's a little more conventional. Hope it helps. My turkeys and chickens are crazy about mulberries.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1961/2

Wild birds love mulberries, in part because they ferment on the tree and become bird hooch.

Later, one is afflicted by besotted birds crapping purple on one's car and driveway, flying headlong into windows, etc.

A lot of folks in the midwest dislike mulberries for this reason; The fruits are nice, but the disorderly, drunken, flying purple poopers are an irritant.

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Try building a fire over it, under safe conditions, of course.

Would love to do so. But I live within city limits. So fire is out.

John Polk wrote:
The Chinese chef's knife is a monument to frugality.  Back "in the day", knives were made by sword makers.  The warlords could afford many swords, but the typical family could only afford one knife.  Instead of putting a knife at each place setting, the cook did all of the cutting with the one knife.  Most Asian cuisines prepare meals where each piece is bite sized (chop sticks are cheaper than knives).

Besides cutting with the edge, the straight back was used as a tenderizer, the blunt end of the handle, and the flat of the blade are used for crushing garlic, ginger, herbs,or whatever.  I have watched a Chinese cook use the square tip to remove phillip head screws so he could repair his rice cooker.  It was a one-size-fits-all, multipurpose kitchen tool.

Haven't used mine as a screwdriver. But the rectangular blade makes it an excellent combination chopper and spatula - dice the ingredient, sweep it up onto the side of the flat blade, and use it to transfer the ingredients to the pot.

I have two herbaceous plagues to deal with.

Siberian elm and Ailanthus are epidemic where I live. I am working on a property where I cut down a siberian elm two years ago and it still is coming back, despite being cut down on a regular basis and being doused with diesel fuel.

I don't want to use glyphosate and will never, ever use a dioxin based herbicide. Anyone got a good way to kill these things?