Not an ordinary household.

02/09/2024

From plant to flour “cassava roots”.
When Peter (my husband) and I first started talking about food security, one of our concerns was access to a good healthy gluten free flour. The two flours we use the most, in our household are almond and cassava.
Almonds I am still thinking about. I would have to find the perfect microclimate spot for it, or it won’t grow here. Almonds are picky. They don’t like drying out and they don’t like sitting in water. It’s also a bit hot for them here where we live.
It’s different with Cassava. Cassava is a root in the yucca family. They love water, and they love the sun and heat even more.
This experiment started a couple of years ago. I keep getting better, but are still not getting a lot of roots. I planted 4 plants in February and 4 plants in Maj. The ones I plants in February never rooted, and we didn’t get very large roots on the others, which leaves me to conclude several things from the observations I have done since planting. I will need to start them indoors, so they get a longer growing season without the exposure to frost. Once they have settled in, they had no problems with the light frost we got in December and January. I will also make sure there are looser soil with more organic matter, to add nutrients and make it easier to spread out. I also planted the other plants with them, and that restricted them as well. I won’t do that next time. I am also going to do some more research to figure out if there are anything else I can do.
Anyway, we did get about 2 pounds of roots, and I bought an additional 15 pounds of roots, so I could go ahead and make flour. I wanted to do it now, before I committed to growing more, to see how tough the processing would be.
It was interesting to see that the sender had dipped the roots in wax before shipping to extend shelf life. I am going to make a note of that. Normally they go bad pretty quick.
The roots were first peeled and then boiled. Once cooled down, we mashed them and froze them on trays and then freeze dried them for 30 hours on 150F.
Then I broke it into pieces and ground them up in my grain mill.
“Note that you can’t use a stone grain mill. You need one of the ones that has a steel blade”
Last I ran them through a shifter to get any little bits and pieces out of the flour.
Then all that was left, was to pack it in a Mylar bag with a Selica bag and an oxygen absorber, and put them in the freezer.
All research I did, said that the flour will go bad unless you store it in the freezer. Now, keep in mind, that I used a freeze dryer. All the tutorials I could find online used a dehydrator or an oven to dry the roots. I don’t know if freeze drying will extend the life of the flour, but I hope it will.
Conclusions:
I will need to start the roots inside, as soon as I have harvested roots outside, and then plant them out in April/May when there no longer are any risk of frost damage.
Make sure the roots get plenty of water. We didn’t always do that, and they suffered for it.
Dip the roots in wax, if you can’t process them right away
The boiling and mashing method works really well for making a nice flour. At some point I want to try the raw method, where the roots are fermented instead of boiled.
You can definitely with very little work grow your own cassava roots for flour, if you life down south in grow zone 10+. We are in grow zone 10a, people in zone 11 or hotter won’t get any frost, and will not have to start the plants indoors.
The processing wasn’t too bad. Most of my problems was from not knowing my grain mill well enough yet. I am also very happy I bought an electric shifter. It would have taken way too much work, shifting it all by hand.

02/05/2024

Oranges and Meyer Lemon processing donnish
Last week we harvested with 71 pounds of Meyer lemons and 100 pound of oranges. They were ripe and we were expecting a rain storm, which can cause them to split.
Because of the we have worked very hard the last three days, and we are very close to finishing.
We still (as in my son Andreas and I) have about 5 pounds of lemons left to process, but we are almost done. Some of them are going to be candied using the Italian way, some eaten fresh and whatever is left will be zested and juices. We also still have 2 loads of orange juice left for the freeze dryer. One is in it now and one is waiting.
This is what we ended up with so far for the oranges:
A little less than quart of freeze dried orange juice (expecting half a gallon or so in total)
We burned the first load of orange marmalade, so that was unfortunate, but we were successful with the rest and ended up with 12 half pints of orange juice marmalade. I hate bitterness, so I only use juice and zest when I make it. I also gave away some oranges to a friend.
This is only the first tree. Our second tree will have ripe oranges in a few months.
Out of the lemons, so far, we made:
1 lemon meringue pie, 1 bowl of lemon mousse, 16 half pints of lemon curd, 15 pints of strawberry lemonade concentrate, and 4 half gallons of fermented lemons.
We also froze 1 gallon as slices and 1 gallon of quartered lemons. We vacuum packed 40 lemons with 2 in each bag and froze them (I know it’s a lot of plastic, but I reuse my vacuum bags, when I can). I read in an article that it will help preserve the essential oils. I don’t know if it will, but it’s my first time, so I vacuum packs them.
Btw, funny story. It was obvious to me that my kids still haven’t gotten used to the principles of eating what’s in season or was preserved. Today my oldest asked when I was going to make more peach and strawberry pie filling, since we are out of those. Her face looked a little funny, when I told her : “not until the peach tree are ready for harvest and the strawberries ripe for picking”. I know that they are favorites, but they are because the fruit was picked at perfect ripeness and freshness during their season. If I was to make more now, the flavor would not be the same, plus I think it’s good to have something to look forward to. It can’t all be about instant gratification.
Photos of it all below.

02/01/2024

Big rain storm coming tomorrow, which can make citrus split. Because of that we harvested 71 pounds of mayor lemons and 125 pounds of Cara Cara oranges.
I preserve citrus in several different ways. I usually ferment 2 gallons cut into quarts. I also candy some, freeze juice and zest. I also always use a lot of zest to make orange and lemon extract from. I am considering several new things to do.
I want to try and freeze dry slices, zest and juice. I don’t have room in my freezer for all of the juice I am going to make from this. From what I have heard, the flavor are like fresh when you freeze dry orange juice, so I am definitely going to try that.

01/15/2024

Comfrey, a herb we should all grow in our gardens.
If you are interested in homesteading and herbal medicine you have probably heard about comfrey. Comfrey is a perennial herb that grows large slightly prickly leaves.
In the garden it makes a wonderful compost tea, and in your orchards it is part of guilds that helps the tree take in nutrients.
For us humans is a herb you use topically. It’s a strong anti inflammatory, and helps both with pain relief and faster healing of bruises, sprains, contusion and other type of swellings. Sometimes I will wake up with stiff and painful joints in my fingers, and recently I had a finger I couldn’t move at all. It later turned out to be a blood clot.
In these situations the best thing to do is to take some leaves or root of the plant, add a little boiling water and simmer it for a few minutes, until the root and leaves are soft and you have a paste. Once it has cooled enough to be comfortable, I sink my hands into the paste and keep it there for 20 minutes. I repeat this process again after 3 hours x2, so I have done it 3 times in total. At first the feeling of heat is just really nice. Then you get a prickly sensation, that’s strange but not uncomfortable.
After each treatment I the pain was less and the mobility in the joints better.
Here is a link to some government studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491633/

01/08/2024

I have decided to gather all of my articles, tips, tricks and recipes at substack so that they are easy to find for everyone. Right now I write/blog on several different forums and platforms, which can be confusing for some people.
It’s also something I now have time to do, since I will have to physically rest for a while, before I can go back to crazy wild thing and experiments,
Here is a link, if anyone are interested in seeing what I have been up to on other platforms.
There will be several different topics, as I have a wide range of interests and things I like to do.
This means that you will be able to read about things like gardening, homesteading, permaculture gardening, how to build a food forest in your front yard, food preservation, freeze drying, fermentation, dehydration, salt preservation, sugar preservation, cooking from scratch, cooking with what you have, wine making, alcohol making, vinegar making, gluten free and paleo cooking and baking, growing your own flour, growing your own oils for cooking and cosmetics.
Some articles on how to make simple clean and healthy creams, lip balm, deodorants and body oils.
Tips and tricks on sewing and mending and so much more.

https://socalhomesteading.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3epu2oNQbI39u25WBbD5n7IEfaXGgDg3clnbKbcsJJJ7JSG4BVGm9wChY

My personal Substack. Click to read Ulla’s Substack, by Ulla Bisgaard, a Substack publication. Launched 27 minutes ago.

12/30/2023

Let me introduce you to permies.com
I am often asked for resources for gardening, prepping, food preservation and so much more. Well all of that knowledge are on permies.
Permies is a forum website, so it can be a little confusing and overwhelming navigating it in the beginning, but once you get it, it’s a fantastic site that will help you grow as a person and learn lots of good things.
You need to make a free account in order to access and save content, so remember that.
Anyway, if you are interested in homesteading, their homesteading resource bundle are on sale for 35$ on January 1-3 2024. Normal price are 150$. It has 70 hours of videos and lots of ebooks. Even though we have been building our homestead for 7 years now, there are still so much more to learn.
Here is the link https://permies.com/w/bundle

The 2024 Homesteading Bundle includes more than 35 resources to help you reach your sustainable homesteading goals. In addition to good eating, you’ll soon see how to decide: “Is it safe?” “Do I need that?

12/07/2023

Have you had/seen/experienced a garden miracle?

For me my garden is my church, and it often confuses other people around me, but I ask “where can you find more miracles, than in a garden.
I love and praise the planet we live on, and I put my trust in it, to provide for me. The soil won’t let you down, if you feed, support and take care of it.
Isn’t it amazing how resilient our planet is?
We planted our lemon tree 6 years ago. Since then it has been cut down by gophers 3 times, and it just kept coming back. The gophers eventually gave up 3 years ago, and last year we finally had our first 10 lemons. This year the tree is full of lemons, it’s booming with probably 100.
Our passion fruit tree was also cut by gophers but now 6 months later, it’s so big and full of fruit, that you can’t see that it was cut down.
If that isn’t enough, just watching a seed sprout, grow and mature is a miracle in itself.
Every time I walk in our gardens, I am amazed, by the beauty of life all around me.
What miracles have you seen/experienced in your garden?

11/11/2023

Here in SoCal the transition from warm weather crops to cold weather crops are coming along nicely. All pumpkins and squash has been harvested (250 #), the beans and tomatoes are almost done producing, and I harvested 5 gallons of basil leaves, from my one plant. I also harvested my turmeric and got nice results even though I was a little early in doing it.
We harvested one bed of sweet potatoes, and didn’t get a lot, but I know why, so it will be better next year. We have a second bed that we will wait on, and not harvest until December. In December we will also harvest cassava for the first time, and all of my ginger. We are still getting plenty of spinach and collards, but those are perennials here, so we harvest those all year round.
Soon we will get passion fruits, something we are looking forward to.
I got all of my onions and garlic planted, and the garlic are sprouting nicely. I also transplanted, red cabbages, leeks, beets, mustard, kohlrabi, romaine and crisp lettuce and daikon radishes, and seeded turnips, celeriac root, parsnips, carrots, radishes and rooted parsley.
Left are ice berg lettuce, green cabbages, Boc Choi, Pack Choi and Napa cabbages. Non of these are ready for transplant yet, but has sprouted (except my icebergs lettuce). They are going into 3 new beds, that still needs to be leveled and filled.
As for the front yard, we are still moving mulch. It’s taking a long time, but that’s okay.
In other news, I bought and got my grain mill and shive for shifting the flour. I can’t wait until I can make my own cassava flour.
I also got a new 40 quarts stockpot with spigot. Left are waiting for my freeze dryer to come, and for an electric version of the oil press I want. I inherited $7k from my father, so that’s what are financing this. They are things I have wanted for a very long time.

10/18/2023

Todays harvest. Melons (since the plants were dead, do to PM) that will need to ripen indoors. More beans and a nice portion of strawberry guava.
We are also done harvesting winter squash and pumpkins, so today we started prepping beds for our cold season crops. In the front yard, onions and garlic has been planted, and we are slowly getting through spreading the mulch we had delivered on September 29th. The passion fruit has lots of fruit ripening, and the elderberries are now ready for their third and last harvest. Soon the currant, boysenberries and white alpine strawberries (that I ordered) will arrive for fall planting.

10/13/2023

I picked the last tomatillos today, and pulled the plants. They were all yellow and dying back, so it was time. We got a lot of them this year. I didn’t weigh them all, but we got around 35 pounds give or take 5 pounds. I need to get better at keeping records of how much we grow.
I also picked more beans, and peppers, and few cherry tomatoes.
The few bean plants I have, has so far given us 25 pints od canned garlic beans, lots of green chili and several sides for dinner.
The sweet potato leaves are turning yellow, and I can see potatoes sticking up the soil, so those will probably be pulled this or next weekend.
Then it will be time to add compost, and seed/transplant the cold season crops.

10/11/2023

Fall on our California Homestead

Fall has arrived in California with constantly changing temperatures and humidity. My melons got powder mold, something I should have predicted and pre treated for. It’s a lesson I won’t forget next year. As you know, if you have read my other posts, planting melons in fall are one of my experiments this year, and except for the PM I am satisfied with what I see.
The pumpkins and winter squash patch are still producing. I am testing out a new way to protect my melons, squash and pumpkins from rats and gophers and it seems to work. What I am doing is wrap each fruit in a soft gopher net. It’s a metal net similar to chain mail. So far non of the ones I have wrapped has been eaten, and the beauty of this product, is that it can be stretched so it will expand as the fruit grows.
Beans are still coming is and so are tomatillos and peppers. I am canning 9 pints of garlic green beans today in my pressure canner.
It always amazes me how fast the garden grows. I have been in bed for the last week, because I hurt my back, and in that time it seems like everything has exploded. Right now I still can’t do a lot, so it’s a bit frustrating to see work piling up. I can tell you, that the chickens will get a lot of food from the garden, once I am better. My mugwort is strangling my Rosemary and my mint are trying to spread to the next bed over. I have a ton of holy Basil, mullein and comfrey to harvest too and the sweet potatoes have started to die back.
These are all blessing though. The chickens will benefit from the herbs, with better health and the compost will be enriched with all of the comfrey.
Next year I will be in a better position to take care of it, since we are getting a freeze dryer. This will enable me to dry a lot more than I am doing now.
Filling the front year with mulch and compost are slow going, but we are slowly getting it done. I have planted strawberries and I am ready to plant garlic and onions. I am going to sow carrots between the onions and garlic, since those two grow really well together. As for fruit, we are still eating storage apples, and have started harvesting strawberry guava. Those little fruits are very delicious especially in smoothies. When I am in the front yard, I keep picking and eating them. It also looks like we will get a bumper crop of passion fruit, and in a month or so the melons will be ripe and ready for picking. These fruits will keep us going until after new years, when we will be able to start harvesting oranges again.
I think the best thing about fall and spring, is that I can see my pantries filling up with canned, dried and frozen produce. The top of my canning shelves are full of pumpkins and winter squash, and there are garlic and onions having in bags of the shelves. It brings me peace, and I fell blessed by the earth we live on. There is so much beauty and health to find in a garden, if you just look. Is it hard work, yes, but it’s worth it. Every time I am out there I feel the connection to the planet we live on and I feel blessed to have this home. Sitting and meditating or just breathing in and looking around, at all of the wild rabbits, snakes, birds and insects that are all around me. It fortifies my belief that we can live a life where we find a balance between us and nature.
A while ago I was asked why I thought we have so many gophers and rats in the San Diego area, and the answer is actually very simple. We broke the balance with nature, so now we are paying the price. When we build homes and industries, we pushes out the predators and established better food sources for rodents, so it’s not surprising that the population has exploded. If we want to bring back that balance, we need to make room for Coyotes, Owls and Snakes, who are the natural predators for that animal group. It’s not easy, but it’s something to think about.

10/08/2023

The last stages of our forest food garden are starting. We had 55 yards of mulch and compost delivered, so we could fill more raised beds and feed the trees, bushes and shrubs in the forest garden. After this is done, all I have left are the “little” details like more berries, herbs, wild flowers and vegetables. I am planning to grow wild garlic, wild onions and walking onions. I am also going to add herbs, and come spring lots of sunflowers. My plan is to use the sunflower seeds to make cooking oils.
When you try to build a garden, for food security and independence, it can be overwhelming, especially when you look at the things that’s convenient to get in a grocery store like oil, grains and sweeteners. It’s impossible to get it all at once, and there will have to be compromises along the way. We still buy many things, that I wish we could produce. Oils are one of these things.
Once our avocado trees finally starts to produce that part will get easier, but I want oil from other sources too and that’s where the sunflowers come in. It will be an experiment, so we will see how things turn out.
Other things like the grains and sweeteners will come later, though I have started on that in smaller ways. I am growing cassava this year to make flour and we keep bees and grow stevia as sweeteners. Long term, I want to try to grow sugar canes and have more bee hives, but that’s not for this year. For now I will focus on getting the mulch spread out, my new beds filled and my winter seedlings planted.