7787_BestofGRITWinter2015

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BACKYARD GARDENING Spearing Through Spring

raising animals for market on a small acreage is doable ‌ and profitable.

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Establish an asparagus bed and reap the rewards for years.

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/STAN ROHRER

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Discover the distinctive appeal of growing tomato varieties that have been handed down from generation to generation.

How Much Does a Garden Really Grow?

Earn a Living on the Farm Growing vegetables and

Open-Pollinated Heirloom Corn Cultivating heirloom varieties in your garden offers outstanding taste and stunning kernels.

Heirloom Tomatoes

How one gardener cut nearly $500 of her grocery bill with suburban vegetable gardening.

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FARMHOUSE RECIPES Easy, No-Knead Artisan Bread

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Methods guaranteed to make everyone a baker!

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The GRIT Staff Shares Its Favorite Recipes One or all of these dishes may just wind up on your dinner table time and time again.

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Cooking With Cast Iron

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Savory Pies

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Pizza Perfection

What you need to know to get started with cast-iron cookware.

Give in to your cravings for delicious and hearty meatfilled pies.

Forget takeout and turn your kitchen into a pizzeria.

4 DIY PROJECTS Farming the Wind

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Landowners all over the United States have discovered a new crop that’s a breeze to cash in on.

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THE BEST OF GRIT MAGAZINE 2015 EDITORIAL OSCAR H. WILL III, Editor-in-Chief CALEB REGAN, Managing Editor TRACI SMITH, Senior Associate Editor JEAN TELLER, Associate Editor KELLSEY TRIMBLE, Assistant Editor ILENE REID, Editorial Assistant

108 TOOLS & EQUIPMENT Your First Compact Tractor

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How do you choose the right one?

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DIY Broiler Coop on a Shoestring Budget At about $50 to build, this movable chicken tractor is durable and about as cheap and simple as they come – and doubles as a cold frame!

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Easy Cold Frame Plans

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Free-Swinging Vistas

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Hatch a Flock

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I’ll Have Mine Rare, Please

Extend the garden season with these simple projects.

Follow these easy DIY porch-swing plans to make your stoop a comfortable vantage point.

LIVESTOCK & POULTRY Animals on Guard

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will keep your flocks safe from predators.

These four-legged friends

Insider tips on incubating eggs and more.

Heritage livestock breeds offer a stewardship opportunity that focuses on well-adapted animals that don’t necessarily fit into the industrial agriculture model.

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Common-Sense Beekeeping Safety Bees are defensive by nature, so don’t set off their warning bells.

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Small-Scale Balers Save a stack of cash by putting up the hay that’s already on your acres.

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Choose the Right Chainsaw From clearing brush to bucking firewood, a cutter exists that’ll meet your needs.

RURAL WILDLIFE Fishing Freshwater and Farm Ponds

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Coalition offers military personnel a means of easing their way back into civilian life.

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The Largest of the Small Cats

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WEBSITE JEN BLACK, Digital Content Manager JASON COLE, Video Producer DISPLAY ADVERTISING (800) 678-5779; adinfo@ogdenpubs.com CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING (866) 848-5416; classifieds@grit.com NEWSSTAND Bob Cucciniello, (785) 274-4401 CUSTOMER CARE • (866) 803-7096 customerservice@ogdenpubs.com

7 Essential Skills for Survival

COUNTRY LIFE Farmers Welcome Returning Veterans

Local angling holes provide a valuable food source as well as hours of fun and fulfillment.

Call them what you will, mountain lion sightings are on the rise.

Nature’s Hidden Language

Expect the unexpected: Prepare yourself for survival situations in the wilderness.

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Enjoy your best season yet by following our guide to hunting deer, turkeys, dove, pheasant, geese and ducks.

Watching for signs of wildlife leads to amazing finds in the animal kingdom.

Making the Cut Choose the right machine, and you’ll be able to mow through all those vegetationtrimming tasks.

Top Fall Hunting Tips

ART/PREPRESS MICHELLE GALINS, Art Director KAREN ROOMAN, KIRSTEN MARTINEZ, Prepress Staff

Field Guide to Farmers & Ranchers

Listen to their lingo and look in their trucks to be sure.

From Flanders Fields to the Land of Oz Beauty, intrigue and variety describe flowers in the poppy family.

BILL UHLER, Publisher OSCAR H. WILL III, Editorial Director CHERILYN OLMSTED, Circulation & Marketing Director BOB CUCCINIELLO, Newsstand & Production Director BOB LEGAULT, Sales Director CAROLYN LANG, Group Art Director ANDREW PERKINS, Merchandise & Event Director TIM SWIETEK, Information Technology Director ROSS HAMMOND, Finance & Accounting Director GRIT Magazine (ISSN 0017-4289) is published bimonthly

by Ogden Publications, Inc., 1503 S.W. 42nd St., Topeka, KS 66609-1265.

For subscription inquiries call: (866) 803-7096 Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 1-785-274-4361 Fax: (785) 274-4305

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SUBSCRIBERS: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within two years. ©2015 Ogden Publications Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.

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8/22/18 3:32 PM

Gold Growing

Open-Pollinated Heirloom Corn Cultivating heirloom varieties in your garden offers outstanding taste and stunning kernels.

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By OSCAR H. WILL III

Photographs by KAREN K. WILL

“One American farmer feeds 128 folks, plus you,” or so proclaims the adage found on roadside signs

across the heartland. Yet ironically, most of those

farmers actually produce commodities such as corn that get passed on up the line – and aren’t consumed directly or even indirectly by people. Thanks to steadfast seed savers and a growing interest in saving heirloom seeds, a number of nonhybrid, nonsweet eating corns are still readily available – for growing and for eating. And best of all, you can save seed from this year’s crop to grow next year’s.

Can the sweet corn While I am not terribly fond of the super sugary sweet corn varieties, I don’t mind an old-fashioned sweet corn now and then, such as Will’s Early June or Golden Bantam. But limiting your corn growing experiments to sweet corn does this marvelous plant and its breathtaking diversity a total disservice. Most corns, even the open-pollinated heirlooms that aren’t sweet corn, are sold as field corn, feed corn or decorative corn.

My ancestors and the native folks who farmed this country before them no doubt enjoyed the beauty of multicolored and textured corns, but the notion that they were good for little more than their good looks or feeding to livestock would have never crossed their minds. What about the smoky flavor of fire-roasted ears, or the crunchy delight of parched corn, or good grits made with hominy, or fresh tortillas, cornbread, Indian pudding and polenta? And don’t forget popcorn.

Whether you choose flint, flour, dent or popcorn varieties, some of the oldest and newest selections in open-pollinated corns are indeed utterly beautiful to look at, but more so, they are delicious, versatile and you don’t need to purchase seed more than once. Open-pollinated heirloom corns are also easy to grow, usually requiring fewer inputs than their high-performing modern counterparts. Adding nitrogen in the form of composted manure at planting and blood meal at the final hoeing or cultivating should be all they need in good soils. The best part

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is that the variety is virtually endless, and you can create your own by selecting ears with interesting traits and growing out the seed in an isolated bed next year.

Preparing the earth Your corn patches will benefit from tillage in the fall or the early spring – possibly both. These are the times to work in cover crops and generous amounts of compost or composted manure if you need to get the fertility up a bit. Depending on the size of your patches, you can work the ground with a turning spade or fork, a small or large rotary tiller, or a tractor-mounted field cultivator or disc. If you have a wheel hoe with a tine cultivator attachment and your patch isn’t too large or compacted, use it to loosen the soil and work in the compost or other amendments. Alternatively and especially in mellow, relatively small patches, use a broad fork to loosen and aerate the soil and a hand cultivator (three-prong device attached to a handle) or soil rake to smooth the seedbed.

Once the ground is worked and you’ve left it long enough to become friable and mellow, it’s time to do some leveling and clod or rock removal. The metal “dirt” rake works well for this task. If you are going to plant your crop in ridges so that you can use gravity to help with flood irrigation, now is the time to mark the rows and hoe or use a middlebuster type attachment on the wheel hoe (or tiller or tractor) to cut troughs while forming ridges. If your

OPPOSITE: Mandan Bride and Bloody Butcher are but a couple of the colorful grinding corns in this harvest trencher.

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8/22/18 3:34 PM

Cooking With Cast Iron

What you need to know to get started with cast-iron cookware.

By JEFF THOMAS and KAREN K. WILL

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skillets for surprisingly little at flea markets, yard sales and online auctions.

Skillets of various sizes, griddles, muffin pans, pots, waffle irons, tea kettles, Dutch ovens – with and without legs – and much more are available on eBay and other websites.

Don’t be afraid of some light surface rust, or of grease or carbon buildup. (See “Reconditioning and Seasoning Vintage Pieces” on Page 36.) It’s best to avoid cracked, warped or deeply pitted pieces though, as these are signs that the piece has been severely neglected or abused.

Casting call

Cooking with cast iron

You can purchase a full line of castiron cookware brand new, or use a little elbow grease to transform a neglected piece into a coveted, lifelong possession.

Buying used ware gives you the satisfaction of giving new life to an old piece, instead of sending it to the local landfill.

Many believe the quality is superior, too.

“Older cast iron wasn’t recycled like some of the iron that’s used today,” Howser says. “The older pieces usually have very thin walls and a finished surface that creates a smooth, slick surface for cooking.”

Cast-iron cooking pieces have been around for centuries, and eagle-eyed shoppers can still find early iron pots and

Cast iron is an excellent conductor of heat, but it needs to be treated kindly.

Don’t place a cold pan on an already hot stovetop. Instead, place the pan on a cold stove, and then start the burner. This helps prevent warping or cracking. If you are cooking on a woodstove over a fire or on charcoal, it’s best to gradually heat the pan in the oven or another heat source prior to cooking.

Most anything can be cooked in cast iron. The only foods to generally avoid are acidic items that require long simmering, such as tomato sauce, as the acid can leach iron from the cookware, resulting in a slightly rusty flavor.

A little discipline is called for at

Serve aebleskiver for breakfast or brunch.

Karen K. Will; Fotolia/oocoskun

There’s nothing like cooking over a fire.

left to right: Fotolia/dja65;

ACROSS THE CONTINENT, dark and dusty corners of thousands of basements and barns contain hidden treasures: skillets, Dutch ovens, griddles and other cookware cast in iron, possibly from a century or two ago. Though once abandoned for flashy designer cookware, cast iron is now regaining its rightful place in the kitchen.

“People love cast iron because it’ll last a lifetime if you take care of it right,” says Russ Howser, president of the Griswold and Cast Iron Cookware Association.

Cast iron can take and hold the heat, whether atop a stove, inside an oven, under a broiler, or over charcoal.

Soups and stews seem to develop a richer flavor, skillet-fried potatoes achieve that perfect crispness that’s not possible with other cookware, and panseared steaks and burgers turn golden brown outside while retaining full flavor and juiciness within. Professional and home cooks alike also value iron’s versatility: One pan can go smoothly from stovetop to oven, making it ideal for browning followed by braising.

This cookware has a lighter side, too.

Seasoned skillets and pots develop a nonstick surface that requires very little cooking oil and is a breeze to clean. “Foods won’t stick if you care for cast iron properly, and you don’t have to worry about eating a chemical coating every time you use it,” says Howser.

Karen K. Will

Cheesy Corn Quiche is simple, hearty and delicious.

cleanup. Do not soak cast-iron pots and pans in the sink – even if you did eat too much and now feel lazy. Also, do not put them in a dishwasher. Instead, hold the piece under running hot water and clean it with a plastic pad or brush, just as you would other nonstick cookware. The food should rinse off quickly and easily.

If any food has stuck to the cooking surface, resist the temptation to use soap.

Soap will remove the pan’s seasoning.

Instead, just add water to the pan, bring it to a simmer on the stovetop, and use a wooden utensil or other tool to loosen the food residue. Don’t be afraid to clean your pan only with water. It will be sterilized by heat each time you cook.

Following these few simple dos and don’ts will ensure the longevity of your cast iron for generations. You could even find that caring for your cookware becomes a joy. Step up to cast iron, and your descendants just might find your “classy” cookware in a dark and dusty corner of your barn some day.

CHEESY CORN QUICHE Recipe and photograph by Karen K. Will Yields 6 servings. ⁄4 cup cornmeal 1 cup all-purpose flour 11⁄4 teaspoons salt

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Cast-iron cookware is a favorite for many.

⁄2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed ⁄2 cup ice water, more or less 2 cups grated cheddar cheese, divided 2 cups whole-kernel sweet corn, cut from cobs (about 4 ears) 1 ⁄2 cup minced onion 4 large eggs 1 cup half-and-half 1 ⁄2 teaspoon sea salt 1 ⁄4 teaspoon smoked paprika or cayenne 1 to 2 tablespoons minced cilantro, to taste 1 1

1 In bowl of food processor, combine cornmeal, flour and salt, and pulse to mix. Add butter, and process for about 20 seconds, or until mixture is crumbly. With machine running, add ice water, a little at a time, stopping when mixture just sticks together and forms dough.

2 Dump dough out onto a sheet of wax paper and gather up in a ball. Transfer dough to plastic wrap, and flatten slightly. Wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3 Place 10-inch cast-iron skillet in lower third of oven. Preheat oven to 425 F. 4 Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and roll out to fit skillet. Place crust in hot skillet and carefully crimp edges with fork.

5 Sprinkle half the cheese over unbaked crust. Top with corn and onion.

6 In small bowl, beat eggs with half-andhalf, sea salt, paprika, cilantro and remaining cheese. Pour over ingredients on crust.

7 Bake in lower third of oven for 15 minutes. www.Grit.com

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Farming the

Landowners all over the United States have discovered a new crop that’s a breeze to cash in on.

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By AMBER BREJCHA FRALEY As long as the wind blows, people will look for ways to put it to good use, and one new old use for the wind that’s more important than

can become part of the domestic energy generating solution and make some serious cash in the process.

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ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/PHOTO VIDEO

the country. If you live with lots of wind, there’s a chance that you

STOCK

powered electricity-generating turbine farms are sprouting all over

TOP TO BOTTOM: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

provide a significant amount of relatively clean electricity, and wind-

(2)/DAN BARNES, STEVE SUCSY

ever is power generation. It turns out that harnessing the wind can

In 1998, Helen and Robert Emick, who own an expansive cattle ranch in Lamar, Colorado, were approached to lease some of their land for a proposed wind farm. The wind farm, known as the Colorado Green Project, has a total of 108 wind turbines, 98 of which are on Emick land owned by Helen and Bob and their seven sons.

Before the project started, the development company gave the Emicks the names of some landowners on the Minnesota-Iowa border where a wind farm had recently been completed. Helen Emick says they visited with a few of them, just to see what they might be getting themselves into.

“The people we visited with were happy to get the wind farm,” she says.

Several years went by as the area was put through various tests to make sure it was a suitable location for a wind farm. Even before the wind farm was constructed, the project changed hands a few times. But when the contracts were finally signed and the actual construction started, the Colorado Green Project was up and running in about six months. Currently, the Emicks lease their land to Shell Energy and Iberdrola Renewables, an energy development company based in Spain.

All-in-all, says Emick, the construction of a wind farm on their land has been “very positive,” as has their association with everyone involved in the development and construction process. Though, she notes, “It was a mess for a long time during the building process.” Because of the sheer number of turbines on the Emicks’ land, Helen says that over the course of the whole project, a total of 600 to 800 semis drove in to bring all of the supplies.

The company also constructed an approximately 11-mile-long access road that connects the turbines. But the total amount of the Emicks’ land that’s been taken by the road and the turbines is less than 2 percent, and Helen Emick says that the turbines themselves have not had any adverse effect on their cattle operation. In fact, on hot days, the cattle often rest in the shade cast by the turbines.

The development company reseeded the grass torn up by the construction process.

Like any landowner who leases land to a wind developer, the Emicks don’t have to maintain the turbines or the access road; that’s all the responsibility of the wind farm owners. And while the tur-

An aerial view of an extensive wind farm puts the turbines on display.

LEFT: These turbines stand 265 feet high near McAdoo, Texas. The turbine blades extend another 115 feet.

bines have created a bit of traffic on their land – 10 or so trucks a day – Helen Emick says the lease payments have been more than worth it.

According to various reports, the average payment can vary from $2,000 to $8,000 per megawatt per year to landowners who lease property for commercial turbine space.

Considering that the Colorado Green Project produces an average of 162 megawatts of energy WWW.GRIT.COM

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8/22/18 3:36 PM

Compact Tractor Your First

Equipping your tractor with a backhoe opens up a world of excavationenhanced opportunity.

How do you choose the right one?

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By OSCAR H. WILL III

You’ve decided to take the financial plunge because your back just won’t take all the lifting. You’ve put off those earth-moving projects long

Begin with the basics

enough, but you need a machine that can do much more than dig. In two

COMPACT TRACTOR BRANDS WORTH CONSIDERING

years, you want to make a little hay, but the driveway needs grading, too.

You’ve decided that a compact tractor will fit the bill, but there are so

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LEFT TO RIGHT: COURTESY

Hauling wood is only one of myriad tasks you can accomplish with a loader-equipped tractor.

When it comes to choosing your first tractor, the process can be daunting, but armed with a little understanding and machinery know-how, you can learn the dealer’s language and get what you need.

Compact tractor models have proliferated in North America ever since Kubota defined the market back in the 1960s. Today, the compact tractor arena is crowded with models that run the gamut, from economy to entry level to fully tricked out.

Add variations in chassis size and weight with widely ranging engine power to transmission choices that are almost continuously variable, and you have a decision-maker’s mess on your mind. Figuring out what you need is a little more difficult than figuring out what you want, but the process need not be as daunting as it initially appears.

KUBOTA; COURTESY CUB CADET YANMAR

many choices. And what does shuttle-shift transmission really mean?

Bobcat Branson Case IH Yanmar John Deere Kioti Kubota LS Tractor Mahindra Massey Ferguson (AGCO) McCormick International New Holland TYM - USA

Every tractor worth considering will have a clean, fuel-efficient diesel engine, transmission(s), rear 3-point hitch, rear drawbar, one or two power take-off (PTO) points, and a hydraulic system.

Most of the tractors will also be equipped with four-wheel drive (if it’s optional, I would nearly always recommend the investment), a loader (invariably worth the money), and occasionally a backhoe or other mounted rear attachment.

You should think of the tractor as a pulling/ pushing machine, as well as a platform for attaching and powering implements and other tools as diverse as emergency home generators, snow plows and belly-mounted finish mowers. Basic tractors without any attachments will cost anywhere from about $10,000 to well over $30,000 depending on their power rating, size, and the level to which they are appointed with high-end engines, transmissions and hydraulic systems.

Power to the people One of the first questions you will need to answer in your quest for the perfect tractor relates to power – PTO power and pulling power.

Unfortunately, most makers lead with net engine power because it is a larger number than PTO power, but PTO power is important to know when you plan to run PTO-powered implements like rear shredder mowers and rotary tillers. The PTO power rating will determine the size of mower or tiller you can efficiently run with the tractor – not whether you can run one at all.

If you need to mow with a 6-foot-wide mower, you will need more PTO horsepower than if you mow with a 4-foot-wide model. For most rural enthusiasts, PTO power in the 25 to 50 hp range should suffice.

Since many makers offer several tractor chassis sizes in overlapping horsepower ranges, you will also want to consider the weight of implements and other devices you plan to push or pull with the tractor. In general, the more the machine weighs, the more traction you will have for moving and stopping. If you’re like me, you’ll love the sound of a direct-injected, turbocharged diesel engine’s turbo spooling up, but consider carefully whether you really need that extra power compared with the non-turbocharged engine.

If you really don’t need it, save yourself some WWW.GRIT.COM

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From to the Beauty, intrigue and variety describe flowers in the poppy family.

Article and photographs

by GARY NOEL ROSS

The word “poppy” denotes different things to different people. Not so long ago, the word was commonly associated with a small, circular flower lapel pin crafted of red and black paper and distributed by veterans on Memorial Day. There also are the tiny poppy seeds used ABOVE: A red opium poppy.

OPPOSITE, clockwise from top left: A single Shirley poppy; reddish-coral opium poppies; purple opium poppies; Iceland poppies; a sliced and dried opium poppy showing the pod and seeds; and a cluster of colorful Shirley poppies.

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in the culinary arts, the huge iconic “Red Poppy” paintings of Georgia O’Keefe, the magical sleep-inducing field of poppies penned in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the garden cultivars that add such exotic pizzazz in early spring, and even the illegal drug trade – raw opium is derived from the sap of the “opium poppy.”

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