Week 5 - Berry heaven, soil testing and visiting permaculture homestead

 

July is a juicy, wonderful and healthy berry heaven season in Shipka. After collecting thousands of black currants, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and mulberries we fulfilled our dream of preserving them. Making dried fruit puree is an efficient, ecological friendly, and toxic-free storing technique. Raw mulberries alone are as sweet, tasty, and fulfilling as any sweets. That's why the best way to consume mulberries is to eat them raw and to save the ones that can't be eaten by drying them. You can do this by drying the mulberries as a whole or by turning them into pestil. Pestil is a Turkish term used for dried fruit purees. It has lots of variations. With or without sugar, with walnuts, hazelnuts, or pistachios covered with grated sesame, coconut, etc. I wanted to share one of the basic recipes with you.

Preparation

1. Put mulberries in a pot,
2. Pulse with a hand blender until pureed,
3. Take the pot to the stove and simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes,
4. Spread the mulberries puree on a tray covered with wax paper,
5. Put the tray in the solar dryer for the average drying time for mulberry fruit puree in the sun is 2-4 days
6. Cut and roll together with wax paper,
7. Keep in an airtight container in the fridge or cellar. 

      Bona petit! 

This week, our supervisor`s sons visited Turkey. And guess what they brought? Yes, baklava! (A very sweet dessert made of layers of flaky pastry filled with a mixture of ground nuts, that originates from Greece and the Middle East).

After drinking our tea and eating our dessert we were ready for soil testing. Our equipment was home­made wire quadrat, home­-made wire penetrometer, home­-made wire infiltrometer, clipboard and a pencil, one soil health card for each set of tests planned, heavy-duty plastic sheet, a spade, a wide-mouthed jar with a lid of 125 ml, a container filled with water (allow 1250 ml water per sample point if the tested soil is dry or 750ml if the soil is moist), watch with a second display. With this soil test we observed ground cover, penetration, infiltration, diversity of soil life, root development, soil structure, aggregate stability, earthworms, soil PH, leaf color. 

We are a bread-loving group of people here and this week we baked some seriously delicious sourdough bread. It's made out of whole wheat, water, and natural sour yeast. We use the ancient method known as sourdough or natural yeast to leaven the bread. Thankfully Tanya (our friend from the village) shared sourdough with us. Although sourdough making seems complicated. It's really a piece of cake.

Sourdough Starter recipe (2)

1. In a wide-mouthed jar, stir together all ingredients until well combined. Cover and keep the jar in a warm part of your kitchen, ideally about 25°C, in a dark place. 
2. Every day at roughly the same time, discard most of the starter mixture and keep only 30 grams (about 2 tablespoons), then feed the starter with equal amounts of flour and water.
3. Continue discarding and feeding the starter every day until you see activity: there should be bubbles visible, the starter will appear airier, and the smell will turn sweet, yeasty, and slightly acidic. This process will take 5 to 7 days. On warmer days, the starter might require two feedings per day. 
4. Once your starter is active, it usually peaks and becomes “ripe” for use about 6 to 8 hours after a feeding. To determine ripeness, it should look puffy, bubbly, active, and pass the float test: fill a small bowl with lukewarm water and drop a scant tablespoon of starter in. If it floats, you are good to go!

 

At the end of the week, we decided to help the municipality to clean the stairs. It was a bit tiring because we did not want to come early in the morning again to clean so we finished everything within a day. 

But wait, the week has not ended yet! We visited a fabulous Hotnitsa permaculture homestead. Because of the strong winds that are native to this land, the old stagers built their home north to south direction and from natural clay, hay, and soil mixture. Also, they built their garden in a way, that it is not directly exposed to the blowing of the wind. We talked about lots of subjects like preserving skills, arts, polyculture gardening, food forest, natural building, deep litter composting, and, etc. Before heading back home to Shipka, we decided to also visit the most beautiful waterfalls.

 (1) http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/168703/northern-rivers-soil-health-card.pdf

 (2) http://cafefernando.com/sourdough-starter-recipe/ , https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a25800142/how-to-make-sourdough-starter/

Stay tuned for more 

Brought to you by Ruhsar