Welcome to the New Home of Removing the Shackles!!

The time has come, so walk away from the Google Monster and get the hell out of Dodge!!

Introducing the New Home of Removing the Shackles  &  Transpicuous News!!!

The decision to get off of Blogger and move to an independent host was a major one, that was finally forced upon me with the Google monster rearing its ugly head time and time again.

From this point on, all new articles and videos will be posted on my new website.  The plan is to slowly move the content from RTS over to its new home and to populate the video archives for Transpicuous News and the One Peoples Roundtable Discussions......at least for 2015 anyway!

Stay tuned for many changes and many additions to the new site!!


Welcome to UnFuckers Unite!!

http://www.unfuckersunite.com/

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School ponics meets home ponics

Shoolponics on the wall

Until last week, the School Ponics system was enjoying an outdoor summer and beginning fall, but last week end, the schoolponic moved out of Quaints back patio. Originally, the schoolponic systems was to spend the summer in quaint, and move back to the Bronx Writing Academy, once the fall school semester started. However, this did not happen. The school decides that hydroponic was not fitting their school projects, therefore, the indoor garden could not continue.    Although, after spending the summer and part of the fall at Quaint, I recovered the system and brought it home. I am now looking for another school to continue the project, but in the time being, I am trying to keep the plants installed by the 6 graders form Bronx writing academy live and producing.    So after the last harvest, I brought the system home, but in a new York city apartment, one has to find a space management solution!

This is how I solved the space problem for now. Since I have a little space in between the 2 kitchen windows, I invaded the space with the towers, first In a couple of bowls to keep the towers from drying and the plants from dying, working for a few days as a "no power ponics" a la JT Bear. 

Then since I have not yet found a school to continue the project, I decided to build something a bit more aesthetically pleasing, and since I had my homeponic aside from it, I thought I would be a good idea to fuse them.

No power schoolponics

Since the towers are white and 4x4, I got a PVC post and end-caps, some silicone caulk and made a collecting channel for the towers. Using halved threaded male coupling and a 1 diameter male to female threaded to pressure coupling, a couple of bits of 1 pvc pipe and a couple of elbows, to drain the collecting channel in the "sump tank" from the homeponics. to attach the channel to the wall, and be able to remove it easily, once I will have found a school, and or to clean it when necessary, I used a couple of french cleats, and I fixed the channel onto a 1x2 board, then the cleat onto the board so there is some clearance for the window frame, and it also allow the towers o be a a slight angle, preventing water to run out of the towers from the front.

Endcaps glued, tower window opened

Predrill hole to slide jumpsaw in

After cutting the PVC post to size, I opened a "window" on the pot for the end of the towers to slide in. To prevent potential splashing on the wall, I did not cut the fourth part of the window, and bent it heating with a heat gun. I then glued on the end caps with silicon caulk, drilled a 1 hole using a spade drill bit, with a piece of wood on the other side (to allow for a better cut of the hole). I was then able to thread the female to male coupling in place, with a O ring and a bead of silicon to make sure it is sealed. The 1 hole is just tight enough to force the threaded coupling into place, and the O ring + caulk might be an overkill, but I dont want a leak in my kitchen. I then halved the male threaded coupling and threaded it (again with a O ring and a bead of caulk) on the inside of the collecting channel. I then screwed the 1x2 board on the top / back of the channel, and then the cleats.

Since I didnt want to risk the tower to flip and fall, or to be too heavy the the channel/ cleats, I also used a 1X2 board to fix on the wall, and screwed in a screw per tower, to hang them from the top. Finally, I added some flexible pipes from the pump in the homeponics to distribute the water to the 4 towers and the homeponic tower.The system is not complete, and running for a couple of days. When I recovered the school system from Quaint, everything was harvested - which is a good thing - because I think otherwise, the no-power hydroponics would not have maintained alive the plants. green onion survived, parsley, the marigold that
grew on one of the towers, the swiss chard, and one of the basil have came back to life !

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Farming Tilapia At Home Better Tasting Than Store Bought

The decision to farm tilapia in our backyard started out as more of a gardening hobby.  We liked how tilapia took on the flavor of whatever preparation we decided to use on any particular night so it was already our fish of choice.  We started with a few Blue tilapia and after nine months of feeding them, they were all over one pound and ready to feed us.

The difference between our own backyard farmed tilapia and store-bought was incredible.  First of all, we never really noticed the brownish tint that store-bought tilapia had until we saw the beautiful white filets that our own tilapia had.  That first year we werent particularly concerned with water clarity.  We figured that the water that they originate from in Africa and the Middle East couldnt have been any cleaner than ours, so we relaxed a bit on the clarity.  But then we started thinking, how bad did the water have to be to stain the insides of the store-bought fish a brownish color.  Well, we did some google research and found out.  I dons suggest that anyone repeat our searches, you may not like what you find.  Lets just say that the tilapia farmers in Indonesia, China and Honduras (but especially China) arent raising their harvest in the cleanest water.

After cooking our first backyard farmed tilapia topped with our own paprika yogurt sauce (plain yogurt, sugar, paprika) and pico de gallo (tomatoes, white onion, cilantro) piled high on top, we immediately tasted the difference.  Ours had a clean flavor that we have never experienced.  Most people would agree that tilapia has little, if any, of that "fishy" taste, but after tasting ours, we knew there was a big difference.  The taste difference is hard to describe. The only word that we can come up with is "cleaner".  Sort of how a salmon has a distinct salmon flavor but its very clean tasting too, thats how our tilapia tasted.  Almost as if you could see a Japanese chef turing it into a plate of sashimi.

We loved our first backyard tilapia so much that today we raise them by the thousands and ship them all over North America and beyond.  And of course, we still eat them three or four times per week.

If you are interested in purchasing some tilapia fingerlings to raise in your own backyard, you can buy them from us for about a dollar each at backyardtilapia.com. By the time you factor in the cost of their food, you will spend less than three dollars per pound for your own perfect tasting tilapia.

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Coconut Prawn Curry with home grown spice

Have been teasing folks with pictures of our Coconut & Prawn/Shrimp Curry on Instagram & FaceBook so thought I would put a bit of a clip together as well ;-) While its great to be able to walk out the back & pick the spices fresh it can also be made with store bought ingredients as well.. 


Curry paste..

Chillies to taste (we use 2) + some for garnish if desired
Large thumb sized piece of ginger or about 2tsp of ginger paste
2 Large thumb sized  piece of galangal OR 3 heaped tsp powdered (not necessary but a favourite spice of mine)
2  Large thumbs of turmeric OR 3 heaped tsp of powdered
3 med cloves of garlic OR 2 heaped tsp garlic paste
¼ tsp salt
½ Tbsp oil

Chop spice into small pieces then pound all ingredients into a paste with a mortar & pestle OR you could cheat & use a food processor like me ;-)
A few tsp of water can be added if you are using powdered spice..

Coconut Prawn/Shrimp Curry..
Serves 2

oil for cooking
Curry paste from above or a good quality yellow curry paste..
¼ cup Shredded coconut 
1 med onion sliced into thinly
150-200g peeled prawn/shrimp  
10 water chestnuts, sliced or ½ small tin
½ med head of broccoli, cut into small florets & stem sliced thin
1 large handful of honey pod/sugar snap peas, sliced in half
½ capsicum/red pepper, sliced
200-250ml of coconut cream
salt

- Heat 2 Tbsp oil in Wok/large fry pan. 
- Fry curry paste for 1 minute then add shredded coconut, cook for another minute.
- Add onions & cook for 1 minute.
- Add in prawns & mix well with curry paste/onions. Some extra oil can go in if needed as well.
- When Prawns look ½ cooked add in veggies & mix well for 1 minute.
- Pour in coconut cream, mix through well then cover top of wok/fry pan & let curry simmer for 3 minutes to heat veggies through & finish off the prawns..
- Serve garnished with more chilli..
- ENJOY!!

Some optional extras to add would be a stalk of lemon grass added into the curry paste & a kaffir lime leaf added into the main dish with the onions

Hope you enjoy the dish as much as we do if you have a crack at it..
Cheers all :-)

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Finishing off the front veggie patch home made compost

& now there are 6...
As mentioned in the last blog I have been rather busy over the past few weeks trying to get the front garden beds up & running.. Added another 2 beds over the weekend just past to bring the total number of beds up to 6..

The last 2 beds will be made up in a few weeks time after we pick up a couple of ½ tanks that have been offered to us (Thank you sir).. Once they are all in Bianca & I will decide on what sort of cladding will be added to them to finish them off..
I have decided to keep using the wicking beds in the front yard after seeing how invasive the onion weed has been in the hay bale & lasagne style beds.. Not sure we will use IBC or tin style beds in the lawn as of yet & still have some tin put aside if we want to go down that road.. The compact dimensions of the IBCs would suit the slope of the land better but the tin beds wouldnt need to be clad so it will be something we think about later..

Wicking IBC beds...
Have been using the IBCs as wicking beds for a while now & have come up with a few modifications on the way they are being put together so they can store water in the reservoir..

Will be interesting to see how they go over summer once it kicks off.. I have a feeling that the corn in particular will be very appreciative of having the extra water available to it..

Harvesting the compost...
We have had 2 "slow cooking" piles of compost going in the patch now for close to 8 months.. As I ran out of horse manure on the weekend I decided to raid these piles to help add some organic matter to the new beds.. One pile was actually supposed to be a "Back to Eden" style wood mulch that just "cooked" a tad too much..

Must say that was very pleased with the way both batches had broken down & have already used over ½ of the composted timber pile.. There is a fair amount of the clipping compost left & think that most of that will be used in the last 2 IBC beds planed for the front yard..

Super fast manure mulching...

As you may have guessed by now I love using horse manure in the gardens & as an edible bedding for the compost worms.. The manure we normally get has been sitting in a pile for a few weeks before it is bagged up so is semi composted & normally very moist.. My local supplier was out of his finest pony poop when I stopped in on Saturday but I was lucky enough to get a few bags the next day from local farm gate.. Some of these pellets had been "sun baking" for a bit becoming rather hard to push through the screen so the big guns were brought out to process it : )»

Have tried the lawn mower method before with the moist manure but it just didnt want to cooperate by clumping up & stalling the mower.. Am thinking that I might be sun drying the moist manure for a few days in the future then running over it with the mower.. Will also save the gloves from extra wear & tear methinks...

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Looking at playing around with a chook feeder this week so shall do a quick post on that once its built..
There is also our Bits Out the Back Facebook page that we post mini updates on the worms, fish & veggie patch if you feel like a visit..

Have a great one all..

: )»

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