Monthly Archives: February 2013

Seed-Starting Terrarium

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It’s that time of the year again: when March hits, I immediately begin pining for the Spring planting season. We still have a few months before we can actually plant anything in the open, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a head start now. With all the seeds I’ve been saving from last year, I have plenty stocked up to allow me to get ahead of the frost.

A few years ago, I started my garden early with a store-bought seed starting kit. It was basically a black plastic basin with a clear plastic domed lid. I set it in front of a window and it worked really well. It gave the seeds everything they need to get started: a temperature controlled environment, light, and constant moisture. It also cost $40, and when I brought it out from storage the following year the clear plastic lid had broken in half and had to be sent to the recycle bin.

This year I decided to make my own. I was planning to build a complex frame system into which I could set panes from an old window to replicate that clear plastic dome. As I looked around our old attic for a junk window, I found this old transom. I decided to switch gears and save myself some time.

Transom Window

What is really awesome about this old transom is the way the paint peeled off the glass. At some point the whole window was painted, and over the decades the paint peeled itself off most of the way, leaving these “fingerprints” behind. I have never seen anything like it, and was tempted to just hang it on the wall as-is. But instead, I moved ahead with the project. Sorry Art; Utility wins today.

Terrarium base

I have a lot of tongue-and-groove porch boards left over from a project last year. It’s yellow pine, which has a good tolerance for moisture, so I decided to use that to build the frame for the glass top. The trusty table saw came out and zipped off the groove and half the tongue on each board, leaving a flat surface on one end and a nice frame on the other. I mitered these together so that the transom would fit snugly inside the frame without gaps. I screwed the frame onto one of the hutch shelves that was left over from the hutch project.

Ready for seeds

Everything fit together nicely. I may end up building some more frames for additional glass panes around the sides to give it a dome shape once the young plants get too tall, but that can wait for another day.

Finished Terrarium

I was limited on space inside my new terrarium, so I started with the plants that need the most time: tomatoes and peppers. I also planted a bunch of lettuce since that’s a plant we can continually harvest as it grows.

In total, this project cost me zero dollars and about two hours from start (looking for an old window in the attic) to finish (seeds planted and dirt cleaned up). Take that Winter: two cubic feet of Spring just started inside my dining room. May the germination begin!

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Preserving Fresh Basil

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When it comes to being frugal, having a household garden is a great way to save money at the same time that you are improving your standards of freshness. After about five years of having fresh herbs and vegetables right outside, it has become difficult to settle for grocery store produce. But what about those months between October and May? Living in the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7A means that there are a number of months in which we cannot reap a harvest. That leads us into preserving the bounty from the summer months to enjoy through the winter months.

I love cooking with fresh herbs. We give a lot of space in our small rooftop garden to growing fresh herbs, teas, and sweeteners. Basil is one of my favorites. We picked a decent harvest throughout the growing season, and in October we still had a lot leftover. After snipping the seed heads, I tied the remaining basil leaves into three big bunches and hung them to dry. Drying the leaves is a little different from drying out the seed heads. In the latter case, I was trying to suck out all the moisture as quickly as possible so as to easily crush the chaff away from the seed. In the case of the basil leaf, I am trying to slowly allow the leaves to naturally dry, without molding or losing the flavorful oils. Drying in a stable temperature with good airflow is necessary, and my kitchen window is great because it is next to an air vent that keeps the air flowing.

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Fast forward to last week. The leaves have dried beautifully and are ready for their second harvest. For this job, I pulled out the trusty mortar and pestle to crush the leaves. I used a sieve to help me keep a consistent flake size so that it wouldn’t get caught in my spice shaker. I would crush, sift, and then repeat the crushing until all that was left in the sieve was a negligible amount.

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In the end, my window-full of fresh basil yielded me about 3 tablespoons of dried and crushed basil spice. I thus labeled, dated, and stored this treasure into an old spice container that I repurposed into a spice container. I compared this with the store-bought container of basil in our cabinet and the difference was staggering: the store-bought lacked flavor and aroma. I added the store-bought to our compost bin and our basil now sits proudly in its place.

It’s easy to stay industrious when it’s warm outside, but a well-planned and industrious summer gives you plenty to keep up with in the colder months.

Harvesting Stevia Leaf

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Rooftop Garden Herbs

This past summer, we grew a great bunch of stuff on top of our roof. You know, like hipsters. We planted some stuff from seed, and picked up the rest from local gardening stores and farmers markets. One thing that I was surprised to find at our local market was a stand selling stevia plants. Stevia being a natural sweetener and a sugar substitute, I asked the vendor how she uses the plant to sweeten things. She said that she used it in full leaf form to sweeten her teas. Being the adventurous type of hipster, we bought one plant and decided to see what we could do with it.

Over the summer, our peppermint (from which we planned to make teas) did not fare well and we did not reap a harvest. The stevia plant, on the other hand, did very well. We ended up with a large plant, but never used it to sweeten the tea that we were never able to make. So feeling guilty and having nothing to brag about, I decided to dry the stevia leaves and preserve them for a later time.

That time was this week. Making tea from a tea bag seemed so normal, and the dried out stevia leaves hanging in our kitchen window caught my eye. I crushed a small amount of stevia leaf, put it in the tea strainer, and steeped. To my surprise, this tea was so sweet, I almost couldn’t drink it!

I decided to harvest the rest of the stevia and put it away for storage. I stripped the stems of the remaining leaves and crushed them in my mortar and pestle, repurposed a spice container into a spice container, and put the pulverized stevia away for another time. I had a good amount of dried leaves, but after crushing I was left with about one tablespoon of stevia powder.

I’m not sure yet how I’ll use it, but I was thinking of trying to make some sugar free banana bread or something. Being the adventurous sort of hipster, I’m sure I’ll find a way to use it.

Dried Stevia

Stevia Strainer

Dried Stevia Leaves

Shaker of Stevia

The Hutch Project and the Satisfaction of Action

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As a hipster, I usually only talk about solutions to issues which I have no tangible ability or actual desire to implement.

“World peace would be so easy if everyone just read Three Cups of Tea.”

“This city will only be cool when every street and alleyway has a dedicated bike lane.”

“The problem with Starbucks is that they’ve lost the art of selling coffee.”

These ethereal solutions are themselves an art to produce. They must be obvious enough that a spectator should say “Why didn’t I think of that?” and far enough out of reach that you can continuously tout your solution without any fear that you will ever be called to act on it.

For a long time I had one of these sitting in my dining room: an old china hutch (circa 1930) that needed some very serious reworking. Structurally, the hutch was in decent shape. Aesthetically, it was in need of a lot of work. This was a piece of furniture we picked up with the intention that I would give it the makeover it needed. For five years it stood in our dining room issuing to me a license to sing my swan song about transforming the ugly duckling.

So what happened? My wife threatened to throw it away, and my house husband side kicked in. I too began to resent the wasted space and the sub-par appearance. You see, we don’t have any china to put into the china hutch, the rough nature of its finish made it difficult to dust, and everyone had already heard me talk about my grand plan.

So here’s what I did:

Unfinished hutch

I had two days off from my full-time job, and I wanted to industriously make the most of my time. So in-between loads of laundry, I dragged the hutch out to the garage and started by disassembling it. It was put together mostly with wood screws, so a flat head screwdriver and a soft mallet was all I needed.SandingI sanded down each panel individually, repaired any lifted veneer with wood glue and filler, and put a fresh coat of stain over everything. Polyurethane, sand, repeat.

IMG_2341IMG_2349I cut the middle section down considerably to make it more of a serving table than a hutch. Upon reassembly, I measured out the front opening and used one of the old shelves as a front hatch. This nice little serving table is a favorite hiding spot now for our dog Little Bit, and all of our cloth napkins and place mats live inside the hatch and out of sight.

It couldn’t be considered complete until it was decorated. On the wall, I used the old hutch door as a faux frame for a piece of fair trade Haitian metalwork. Add a plant and a bowl of wooden fruit and cross it off of my to-do list!

In total, the project cost me about $12:

  • Piece of veneer from the Habitat Re-Store: 80¢
  • Small can of stain: $4
  • Leftover polyurethane: free
  • Front panel hinges/magnetic catch: $7
  • 1930s era drawer pull: repurposed off another dilapidated piece…at least I still have another project about which I can ruminate.

Saving Basil Seeds

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Are you curious if one of your odd activities can be considered hipster? Run it through this simple “yes or no” test by answering the question, “Was this activity a common/necessary part of life 100 years ago, but incredibly uncommon/unnecessary today?” If you answered yes to this question, then chances are you’re doing something a hipster would do. By that test, the practice of seed saving can be considered as hipster as “using a victrola” or “shaving with a straight razor” or “not showering.”

Seed saving is a great way to make you look like you know what you’re talking about, develop high-yielding plants that are better acclimated for your specific climate, and takes months longer and incredibly more effort than buying a packet of seeds for 89 cents at the grocery store. This is something I do to help exercise my frugality at the same time that I keep in touch with my industrious side. It’s something that takes little time during the harvest season of gardening, and gives you something to do in the off-season of winter. Different vegetable seeds go through different processes to harvest, but the other night I harvested a bunch of basil seeds and took some pictures of the way I did it. I always get confused as to whether or not Instagram is cool anymore for hipsters to use, so I’ll show them to you here instead.

Bag BasilAt the end of the growing season, I clipped all these seed heads from our basil crop and threw them into paper bags to allow them to dry out. The seed head on basil is the tall shoot above the edible leaves, and it flowers. Once the flowers begin to die,  clip that seed head off and save it for winter.

The paper bag is a magical place that will allow this harvest to dry out without getting moldy. Store this paper bag in a dry place for a few months.

Hanging BasilAn alternative to the paper bag method of drying is to hang your seed heads in a very visible window.  This method is much less efficient than the paper bag, but often preferred by the hipster that wants to show people that he/she is doing something that confuses ordinary people.

Separate the seeds from the chaff

Once they are thoroughly dry (I harvested in October so they have been in the paper bag for a few months), crush the seed heads between your fingers in a well-contained area. I simply reached into the bag and kept everything nice and tidy that way. Then I pour the crushings into a pie tin and separated out the seeds with a slight rocking motion that allowed the heavier seeds to fall to one side while leaving the chaff at the top. In this picture you can see the basil seeds as the larger black bits in the tin.

Seed packets!

After you get your seeds pretty well separated, put them away until it’s time to start your garden (don’t spend all winter trying to separate the seeds 100% from the chaff of the seed heads. It won’t hurt anything if it’s all in there together). For storing the saved seeds, I either make smaller envelopes by cutting and taping regular-sized envelopes envelopes, or I’ll repurpose an empty spice jar. In this case I opted for the little envelopes, and I always try to date my seeds as a good habit.

There you have it. Seed saving is probably one of the more useful things that hipsters can do, and as a house husband, it helps our little clan to have fresh herbs and vegetables during the growing season. Be daring; be hipster; be resourceful: save those seeds.

Frugal. Industrious. Resourceful.

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Hipster Ben FranklinAre you ready for a history lesson? I read most of an iBook about Benjamin Franklin, so by hipster standards, I basically have my doctorate in American Revolutionary History.

Benjamin Franklin is given a lot of credit for helping promote the ideals of the middle class in the New World. These were ideals that he embodied as much as possible, and which he looked for in a spouse. Here comes Deborah Read. By most accounts, Deborah was not an exceptional beauty. There was not a lustful passion or physical attraction that drove them together. Rather, it was more a union of practicality. Deborah needed someone to take care of her, and Benjamin needed someone to take care of him. Benjamin Franklin was a very pragmatic person, you see. He didn’t like to get into things that had no practical application or benefit. That’s why he invented the lightning rod and bifocals and a weird stove and a bunch of other super practical stuff.

But I digress. I bring these things up to mention my House Husband motto: Frugal. Industrious. Resourceful. For these are things that Benjamin Franklin loved most about his Deborah. Not only did she clean the house, but she kept the finances for his printing business. Not only did she cook the meals, but she also helped to run the family business. When the people of Philadelphia mobbed their house on Market Street because they thought Benjamin to be a British loyalist, did Deborah grab a frying pan? No, she grabbed a rifle. And while I am wholly subscribed to pacifism and non-violent response, her resourcefulness cannot help but be admired.

Benjamin Franklin wrote and spoke in praise of these attributes of his wife often. Not only frugal, but also industrious. Not only industrious, but also resourceful.

As a House Husband, these words mean a lot to me. I keep track of our budget: frugal. I make the most of my time outside of my full-time job: industrious. I use what we already have to improve of our lot: resourceful. As a Hipster, these words give me license to do weird hipster things. I ride mopeds to save on gas: frugal. I make things by hand when they can easily be purchased: industrious. I repurpose trash into usable items: resourceful.

These words will come up often because I use them to help guide my days. They also make me look smart because I get to talk about Benjamin Franklin, a topic on which I am obviously very educated.

Credentials of a House Husband

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I don’t stay at home; it’s true.

I’m not raising children; right.

How do I have the audacity to claim the title of House Husband? Do I dare poke fun at those that call themselves house spouses? Well, yes, kind of. Only because I firmly believe that if I can’t poke fun at myself then I shouldn’t publish anything, and I believe I have taken on the role of house spouse as much as any baby-touting better-half.

Over the past five and a half years of marriage, our job situations have, well, fluctuated. Across the timeline of our marriage, the weight of “nights away” and “hours worked” and “multiple jobs” has shifted back and forth. The realization came that this weight had shifted away from me when I was only working one job at 40 hours a week. This was the least I had worked in the lifetime of our marriage. At the same moment, Marie was working five part-time jobs. It was time to ramp up the expectations I had for myself and our homestead by taking on another job: house husband.

I’m no stranger to bivocationality. Not only do I have personal experience in the field, but this seems to be an epidemic of my generation. This hipster phenomena has seen a lot of young people going to college for something about which they are passionate, then graduate to work full-time in retail or food service or hospitality in order to support their passion as part-time or free-lance or volunteer work.

As I stepped into my new role, I realized something that I didn’t expect: this new job was my passion. I like running a tight ship, I like keeping the dust off our mantle, I like organizing and decorating and innovating and improvising. It’s not that Marie doesn’t help clean; she just doesn’t like it enough to write about it on the internet. This job for me is fun, it’s gratifying, and I’ll work full-time to support it.

That’s why I am the audaciously self-appointed House Husband of our little homestead, and those are the credentials I use to write as one.

Credentials of a Hipster

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I tie my bow ties by hand.Bow Ties

You see, I went through a phase for about three months in which I decided to wear a tie everyday. It started out innocently enough: an attempt at self-discipline and an interest in resolving my typically disheveled appearance.

At that time, the four-in-hand knot was the only knot I knew, and I used it everyday for about a week until I got bored. “Am I really going to do this every day?” I asked myself. There has to be more to this.

So started the YouTube videos. Windsor, Half-Windsor, Pratt. Spread collars, button downs, stays. All of this was very good, but I needed something to challenge me at the same time that it told the world: I know how to do something that you don’t!

I tie my bow ties by hand, you see.

And really, that’s all you need to know. The air of superiority with which I can relish that sentence is one of the fundamental components of being a hipster. What you don’t need to know is the hours I practiced and failed, or the fact that the majority of my knowledge about neckwear comes from YouTube. Because a big part of being a hipster is knowing enough useless information to belittle other people without really knowing anything at all.

This is a place in which I can vent some of these peculiarities at the same time that it gives voice to the less coarse of my oddities. Whether it’s gardening or moped repair or home brewing or the exact temperature at which to brew your coffee, that’s the stuff I’ll tell you about; because that’s the stuff I know about. I am credentialed as a hipster to speak on these and other matters of impracticality, so I hope you read along for both our sakes.