oaktown hip hops

Yo!
You heard the 411 on the hop crisis?
Well, whether you have or not, for us malt liquor lovers, it's like, damn! Fo' shoe-a.
Luckily, my abode here in Oaktown be in a middle latitude on dis' orb and gots a hella mild climate. Means you can grow'em yo'self my peeps.

So somehow seeing into the future and anticipating the shortage of some hops for craft brewers, about this time last year, I bought a few hop rhizomes and planted them out front. Really, I bought them down at the Oak Barrel because they had some, I love growing things, and a town named Hopland is under two hours away so I figured they'd do at least alright. Anyway, they were planted in half barrels containing crappy soil that needed much amending and aerating. No worries. I read they don't do much their first year. Sure nuff, they went up about four feet reeeel slowly and then all the greenery died about November during our first almost frost.

This year, I looked at our garden space more closely and hatched a plan for hop production. I transplanted them into a patch that I used an acidic conditioner on (sulfur bits). Apparently, the new environs and second year of growth have coincided nicely, for we now have a few plants climbing. Getting them to grow is one challenge. Directing their growth is another. So, to push the learning even further, I put strings I tied to tomato cages at ground level and to a few rusty screws near our roofline (placed so fortuitously by a former tenant) for the Northern Brewer to climb, while the Cascade are being directed to go out horizontal above the cold frame and toward the street.

Looking out the bathroom window now involves a leafy view, particularly downward. The bines grow clockwise around the strings and haul themselves up rather nicely. And if you like watching things grow, these are fun. On that hottest day a few weeks back here in the bay area, one of them seemed to grow about eight inches. I couldn't believe my eyes, but it corresponded with it coming up over the gutter and finally onto the roof so it was easy to see its progress over the course of the day. It was amazing.
I love plants.

On closer inspection a few days later, I noticed that what I thought might be the developing cones, must indeed be. From a distance, it looked like the plants had blurry spots on them. I hauled myself up for a closer look and there they were in open flowering mode, fuzzy and hoppy. I went back inside and did a little happy dance feeling totally stoked at the prospect of a future hop harvest. I thought to myself sheee-iiiit damn! DIY rules! (followed by whispering to myself) Just don't fuck it up now.........

The little ladies in the neighborhood have been diggin' on the hops too. I guess it it still technically spring for a few more days and they might as well make the best of it. I welcome any thing that pleases them for there have been no pests of any kind so far. By the looks of these critters, I can probably count on aphids at least being out of the picture. Or can I? A horrid thought crossed my mind: we had some enormous garden pests last year, chiefly in the form of the North American bastard corn swiper. They better not return and like hops too!

Well, I'm off to go make a few bamboo stake booby traps and maybe a slingshot or two. So, remember, whatever you may consider doing in my yard, make sure you have explicit permission!

wood fired pizza or corn in my cob

I've been dreaming of owning a wood fired oven for a long time. To me, it just seems like the ultimate marriage of simple technology and fantastic results. Besides, with all the home made bread we do around here, it seems inevitable that it would be high on my wish list. Over the past year I've done some reading on the subject to familiarize myself with the probability of building my own. I figure, I'm a do it yourselfer, right down to the doing it yourself part, so this past week I finally "got my ass in gear" and did something about it.

I started by making a willow frame to help shape my earthen oven. A few days previous, I trimmed the willow in the backyard, so I had ample material on hand. I stripped off a few switches and started weaving a basket of sorts. It reminded me of tying together sticks into an "x" way back in grade school and then weaving yarn around the sticks to give them strength. I repeated this procedure a few more times and added several sticks. When I was happy with the shape, I set it on the floor to let the kids have at it. I thought, if they don't destroy it after abusing it for an hour, then it just might be strong enough to support some mud on top of it.

When the willow was being trimmed, I also played with the various bricks we had in the backyard to envision a base for my oven. With the arrangement I felt would work best with the materials at hand (one of the biggest goals of the whole endeavor) I placed our willow basket on top. It appeared that the size would work nice. I scraped the nice topsoil from our garden and dug a hole in the nice clayey stuff at the bottom. Tossing the dirt into a wheel barrow along with a bucket of trimmed, leftover hay from last year, then adding some good old H20 and mixing thoroughly, we were ready for some construction.

The princess "Cobina" was on hand to bless the work. After mudding in the bottom bricks to keep them stable and in place I started working my way up. When the willow frame was reached, I covered it with some thick paper bags and newspaper and tried to tuck this in to keep it in place. The weight of the mud was pushing in and distorting the paper layer so I packed the void space with some small blocks of wood and a few bricks. I continued on my way up, and after reaching about two-thirds of the way to the top, began just slapping mud everywhere and concentrating on achieving a nice round shape.

After sitting overnight, I was anxious to see if it fared all right and had dried ever so slightly. All looked well, no slumping or distortion had occurred during the night, so I went ahead and cut access to the packing material and emptied it. I now had a pile of small blocks of peach wood that would be returned a few at a time to their former residence, though much, much hotter. After about 6 hours of flame, the outside of the oven was nearly completely dry to the touch. The inside was blistering hot, so I put a large tile over the entrance and went inside for an hour to see how it held heat.

When I came back out, there was still some heat, but not enough for baking some pizza. I tried one anyway, but the bottom was the only thing cooking rapidly. I took it out and re-lit a small fire on one side. After it was burning for about twenty minutes, I raked the coals over to the other side, swept up the ashes some and put in another pizza. This time, the bottom cooked nicely, but the side nearest the flame was getting burnt to a crisp. By pizza number three, I had the heat and rotation aspects worked out and started making some decent looking pies.

Well, there you have it: wood fired pizza from my cob oven. The sourdough cornmeal crust, carmelized onions, mushrooms and pesto were all locally sourced. The mud for the oven came from under my feet. Now that, is local.

So come on. If this looks intriguing to you, go do some reading and build one yourself. Really, they are quite easy. You play with sticks, dirt, water and bricks......how hard can it be? In fact, while making the cob part I was thinking how it was like the adobe bricks and tiles we made as school children back in 4th grade at the Sonoma Mission while on a field trip. Simple technology, simple building materials, just give 'em a little knowledge and watch 'em go!

So, if you doubt your own abilities, then ask yourself: have you graduated 4th grade? Do you have some dirt in your backyard? Love wood fired pizza? Then get to work and make yourself a cob oven. Do it!