 Hey guys, it's Matt Stonehead Farmer coming at you from farm for all and This isn't a video that I planned on doing But the next video that I have in the works is going to take a couple of weeks to complete just because I have to wait for plans to do their thing so I thought I'd bring you along for a little harvest and a Little project in the kitchen kitchen So what I have here are some Dicon radishes that are growing the seed and Kind of plant them as an experiment this spring just to see What kind of root development they would get before they bolted and They're all pretty tiny see if I can pull one up so you can see it not huge for Dicons, but I wasn't expecting to get good root development this time of year I usually plant them as a fall and winter crop But I knew that even if they bolted super early I'd get lots of these little seed pods, which Are really great for eating fresh. I like to put them in salads or stir-frys and Really one of the other reasons that I plant Dicon is that they germinate so quickly So I like to put them in between crops as I'm waiting for them to sprout so I can tell where one thing ends and the other thing begins So I've got my cabbages on this side I've got my lettuces on this side and the Dicon in the middle so that I can tell where One is versus the other So I'm gonna go ahead and because these Dicon are starting to Shade out my cabbages, especially in the morning Gonna go ahead and harvest all these stalks Now there's still lots of flowers on them. I'm gonna upset this bumble bee that's buzzing around collecting nectar But I'm gonna harvest all of these I'm gonna take them into the kitchen and I'm going to Whip up a little fermented pickle with them Now you'll notice that I didn't pull up the roots and the reason for that and one of the major reasons that I grow Dicon radishes is to just let the roots rot in the ground they'll end up because Especially in clay soil. They're able to get a lot deeper than most things can They'll get in there deep and they will break up the soil and add organic matter deeper down then you can get just by Mixing in compost or something like that and this way you're avoiding digging in your soil. I Did pull up that one just to show you guys and Take that over and we'll feed it to the chickens They're sitting here waiting because they know that I always bring them treats from the garden There you go I don't think you really like the Dicons that much, but you'll eat the greens off of them at least Welcome to my outdoor kitchen area slash greenhouse. We haven't finished putting the signs on the greenhouse yet So right now it's just my outdoor kitchen I'll talk. I think this is called a gorilla tub. I Love this thing. I ended up picking it up on a clearance rack at a big box store I think I had a specific use for it at the time, but I remember what that was but Flexible it's a good size for harvesting things. I like to use it for doing my initial wash of things like root crops and Because it's flexible you can kind of bend it and make a little spout so Because we don't have running water if I do need to get water to like a tree or something Fill this up and basically use it as a giant watering can As long as you're not using it to water things that are really delicate and can't handle big volume of water being poured on them so what I'm gonna do is just Pull all these guys out I'm just gonna go through and pick all of these pods off see some of these Starting to get some little bumps. I'm like you can actually see it from that far away these guys starting to get bumps So probably a pretty good seed development already See what it's actually gonna focus See the seed in there. It's fine to eat at this stage But they do tend to get a little bit tougher once they reach this stage. So I'll probably pick out most of those ones The ones that you're really going for The ones that you're really going for smoother like this go ahead and go through and pick all of these off Throw them in my bucket so I can get a good rinse and we'll go from there now seeds of radishes Including daikons or edible some of the leaves Although I'd cook them These actually aren't too bad. Some radishes have pretty fuzzy leaves cooking helps with that mostly like I already mentioned I use them in the stir fries and Cut them up and put them in salads early in the season. I've got them going but in this case today I am Going to ferment them now I Love the can but since I haven't had a functional kitchen For a couple of years I haven't been able to do a lot of canning last year. I ended up doing a ton of fermenting Because that's what I was able to do with what I have for a kitchen I've actually Got it down to the point where I Actually might prefer fermenting over canning. It's a lot less hassle Things won't store as long But you can put away a lot of stuff really quickly with a lot less fuss so I'm gonna go ahead and go through pick all of these pods up and Then I'll be back to Show you the next step Now if you're asking yourself. Hey Matt Why aren't you saving any radish seeds if they're forming seeds? Why don't you just let them go and save seeds? This is why I already did my Dicon seed harvest a few days ago. This is from Dicons that I planted around December. They went through the winter and then formed seeds These are from varieties or rather from plants that I know can handle the cold and make it all the way through winter And that's what I want to save seeds from since this is primarily a fall and winter radish I don't know if you can see here that these are getting pretty good and dry There's still some green material The problem with some things especially a lot of legumes and apparently Dicon radishes. This is the first year that I've saved Dicon radishes They don't dry out Evenly while they're in the ground. So even though these weren't as dry as I would have liked them to be when I harvested them I was already starting to lose a lot of seeds to shattering Which is what happens when seed pods get really dry and start popping open so that they can disperse the seeds I Was already losing a lot of seeds to shattering. So I went ahead and harvested the whole crop even though I would have preferred them to be Most things I prefer to be uniformly dry before I harvest them in this case I harvested everything I stuck them in this garden cart. I've got a old sheet of plastic from Home Depot It was wrapped over something we had delivered And I just used that inside the garden cart to hold all the seeds anything that spills out Clamped it onto the cart to make sure it doesn't go anywhere and I'll let these dry out for a few days And once they're getting ready, I will thrush and window them and then I should have enough Dicon rider seeds to last me for a while so I Just stepped away to feed some aphids to the chickens. I noticed that One of the pods had or one of the stems had a bunch of aphids at the top and I've been collecting lots of seeds from Dicon and turnip This season and I noticed that Occasionally the tops of them when they start going to seed will attract aphids Which honestly is great it doesn't affect anything that I'm really harvesting and It seems to attract them away from my other crops. I've not had issues with aphids on anything other This stuff that's going to seed and it's pretty effortless to just pick off the tops And go feed them to the chickens and get rid of them for good So if you're looking for a trap crop If you have a lot of issues with aphids Try letting some Dicon or some turnips or something like that go to seed. Just leave them in the garden aphids will flock to that and then you can just pick the tops off and get rid of them Never processed as many at once So I've never had to figure out how to get them off quickly But I discovered during this large of a bash that if you just kind of pinch the stem and pull down They'll all come right off in your hand and that makes it Pretty quick and painless to get them off of there so you can do a bunch really quickly All right, I've picked all of them off and Like I said, you can eat the greens on these but they're they're pretty sparse so I don't really find it worth the effort to pick a whole lot of them Occasionally I'll throw a few in like a super stir-fry or something if it's early in the season and I don't have anything else but Honestly the chickens love them so that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna go take these over the chickens and I'm gonna bring out another container and show you what we do next Say hi to peanut T-clawed Still the best barn cat I've ever met Brings mice into my room every morning to show me what a good job. She did Even though I would rather not wake up to dead animals on my floor All right, here you go all right, I'm Sure, you've already heard me say it at this point, but we don't have Running potable water yet So I like to do my initial rents in our non-potable water Just to get the most dirt and stuff off especially with things like root crops and carrots radishes that sort of thing Before I rinse them in our clean water since we have to haul that in so I'm gonna go ahead and add some of the Well water into this Really tub here give them a quick rinse and then I'll start sorting through pick out the ones that have a Pretty big seeds starting to develop in them and are gonna be a little bit tougher. I'll pick those out leave those for the chickens and put all the ones I'm keeping in this Food grid bucket with some fresh water to give them a second rinse and then I'll do One third rinse with French fresh water after I get that done That's what I love about these tubs. I've got the nice handles good and big so Put a lot of produce in them. Let's refresh Rinse water in there Give them a nice mix to get all the dirt off now. I'll just start sorting through these Stuff which I'm sure you can't see from here But stuff that it's got the little bumps and start getting to develop seeds Toss those aside for the chickens back got a bucket over here For chickens I'll go in this bucket. I'm keeping will go in So food grid bucket can also kind of tell Whether they're getting too tough to eat by a squeezing them a little so I don't know if you'll actually be able to tell on camera But this bumpy one is starting to get the seeds developed if you try to squish it It's tough. It won't even give any the softer ones. They'll really They're pretty squishy They'll pop open a little bit if you squeeze on them So if you have any doubts about whether they're too developed to be worth eating Kim little squish You'll be able to tell so I want to talk a little bit about the ones that I am starting I already mentioned that both ones that are Kind of developing the bumps where they're developing seeds toss those Occasionally you'll find one that's actually still soft and I'll keep that one, but for the most part they're pretty tough sometimes you'll find one that's still pretty smooth, but If you squeeze on it, it won't give it all it's getting pretty tough The other ones that I discard or any that have any kind of like bug damage or anything weird on them and I also discard ones that are kind of small Long ones that haven't fully developed yet and they're perfectly edible, but They're fiddly not really worth the effort to take to clean them and deal with them So I just discard those Honestly, some things are just too small and fiddly to be worth dealing with I can feed them to the chickens and turn them into eggs And that's a better use for them than trying to feed them to myself. There's also quite a few little flowers and bits of stem that came off when I pulled all the pods off the stems discarding those as I go a little bit of stem Yeah You don't have to be as picky as I am when you're going through and picking through these It's not gonna hurt you to Pickle some that are too tough to eat just means that you're gonna discover them when you go to eat them Especially since it's not like I'm selling these or being someone else there for my own consumption So if I end up with a few tough ones in there, I can just pick them out as I find them but Because of the quantity that I'm doing I only want the best ones in there so that I don't have a bunch of tough ones Filling up my container and taking up the unnecessary space These are Time to fill up this container. I'm gonna go add a little bit more water to this and start filling up a second container for the second Starting to get a lot pickier now that I see how many that I actually have that are worth keeping Picking out a lot of the much smaller ones because Not really worth the effort to check and see if they're too tough to eat rather just Come the chickens let the chickens decide whether they're worth eating or not said Nothing goes to waste Anything that I don't eat gets converted into eggs Which should be much tastier than a bunch of tough Nasty radish pods It's also speeding things up that I'm being more picky and I can just pick out ones that visually look like they're not gonna be worth my time and Not bother doing the squeeze test That is everything that I'm going to keep. This is a Six-core container looks like I got about a gallon total of good pods and that was from a four-foot row single row of Dicon radishes That's a pretty good harvest Gonna go get my other batch of fresh water so I can give them one final rinse. There's my other container of rinse water Just gonna press these guys down a lot of the little bits of flour and stem and whatnot will Float towards the top and I can kind of pour part of this off In the process, but you can get rid of a lot of the small floaty stuff that way Fresh batch water Give me a good shake Try to knock off the last little bits of flour and Stammin whatnot All this water right back in there And now I'm gonna go clean this container. This is actually what I'm gonna end up fermenting it. All right These are pretty well rinsed. I'm just gonna move them back into this other container that I'm going to be fermenting in Check for any little bits of flour and leaf that are still clinging to them as I Move them over a little bit of stem there. I'm leaving the stems on They would be way too much effort to take them off and Basically, I'm just gonna treat them like you would a pickled pepper or something eat the pod Discard the stem when you're done eating it. You're just hoping I'll give you some more attention, huh? Cats they're rolling around trying to act cute We all know you're a murder cat. You can't fool us It's not gonna hurt anything if you do end up with a little bit of flour or stem In your ferment Just might be something that you prefer not to eat and you'll have to pick up pick off after you pickle them It's not gonna ruin anything All my pods It's like right at the port-court one gallon line rest my rinse water Going to my grill attempt so I can take it over the chicken pan Go ahead and toss all these discarded pods in there Chickens are gonna end up loving those Set these aside go ahead and go get the rest of the ingredients and Show you how to finish this The rest of my ingredients, I don't have a whole lot to season them with I'd love to put some peppers or something in here ginger would probably also be good, but my peppers aren't Ready to pick yet. So I went ahead and got some chives. This is a combination of regular onion chives and Garlic chives and I'm just gonna squeeze them crush them up a little bit so that flavor will release into the brine and I'm just gonna Come in and shovel them all down in the middle like that Next thing that we need is salt For the few things that we do have to go into town to buy we go to a restaurant supply store That's where these food grid buckets come from and Also, where I get my salt because I do a lot preserving. I just go ahead and buy my salt This is a 25 pound bag and that way it lasts me a while I don't have to constantly go out and buy teeny tiny little containers of salt It's not amazing salt. It's not like a salt that I would use to like finish something with cook with But for preserving all you need is just a good old granulated plain non iodized salt and that's what this is Now usually I Would like to do my permits by weight. I would Go ahead and add all of my ingredients add enough water to Fill up my container just above the level of my veggies and then I would stick it on a scale and Figure out how much it weighs minus the weight of the container. So if you Put your container on the scale and tear it or if you put your container on the scale and figure out What the weight is and then subtract that from the total weight Figure out what the weight of your water and your veggies and all your seasonings is and then You want to do? two to three percent salt By weight for the weight of your veggies in your water. So what I would normally do I would Put this on the scale With the water and everything in it figure out what the weight is I would hold all the veggies in and pour the water off into a different container Measure out two to three percent salt solution Mix that into my water and then pour the water back over my veggies In this case since My scale had a little accident with a toaster oven a few months ago I haven't been able to replace it I'm gonna go ahead and do this by volume, which is not my preferred way to do it but what you want is Around two tablespoons per quart Four quarts here the water is gonna be a little bit above this. So I'm gonna do probably About ten tablespoons for this entire container and This is a two tablespoon scoop Sold as a coffee scoop which also came from the restaurant supply store and I'm just gonna measure out Ten tablespoons of salt into my Raj Pods Sprinkle it around it doesn't really matter. You're gonna add water to it and it's gonna get mixed in just fun All right, I ran a storage space funny how that happens when you're shooting a bunch of HD video What I've not sure how much I lost but what I went ahead and did is Add some fresh water on top of my salt and radishes here Filled it up to about the four quart mark just just enough to cover the radishes and now comes the secret part and The reason why I've really started to love fermenting over canning and that's You're not limited on container size if you wanted to get like a 50 gallon food grade Barrel and mix up 50 gallons of sauerkraut all at once you could do it I don't know why you would need 50 gallons of sauerkraut unless you're feeding like a few hundred people Maybe a few thousand people with that much sauerkraut, but the nice thing is I have these six quart food grade containers. I can fill one of these up rather than doing You know four or five little quarts of ferments now I Do love using air locks with my ferments typically if I'm doing a smaller batch I'll use like court mason jars and Traditionally I would get a lid that has a airlock on top and That just helps seal the container so that you're not getting Kind of mold spores and yeast and stuff blowing in on top. It won't really hurt it at least most things Well, a lot of ferments will get like a yeast a film of yeast on the top that you can just scoop out It doesn't hurt anything But I'd rather get Prevent anything weird from growing on top of my ferments to begin with and air locks help with that Well these containers do come with lids if you really wanted to you could drill out a hole Put in a gasket and install an airlock. I've done that before you can pick them up at like a homebrew Supply shop for like brew and beer and stuff and just use them for your ferments but I discovered a method that's way more ingenious and makes fermenting way less of a hassle and That is to use a plastic bag now typically if I'm using like Court mason jar I'll get like the court freezer zip top bags thicker plastic and I'll use that and In this case because I'm using these larger containers. I can't get a zip top bag that's big enough to fill this so This time around I'm experimenting with these these are Just the Reynolds slow cooker liners and since Their food grade that'll be perfect for using in our ferments. I mean I would prefer To use non-plastic things. I'd rather use glass and stuff, but Plastic is what I have that's big enough. That's what I'm using in this instance and Basically what you want to do is get your bag opened up Fit it down inside here Just drape it over the top like this and now we've got this up to About the five-court mark we'll call it for what you want is To add a more brine In the top of the bag here. I got my little scoop. I'm gonna call In two quarts, but I'm adding on top of this So I'm just gonna add a couple more scoops right here In the bag a couple more scoops of salt four tablespoons for the size of a container and then I'm just gonna add More water in the top of that near the top it doesn't need to be all the way in the top Basically what you've done is You've basically added a weight on top just like you would normally use a lot of people use like glass weights or something to Hold their ferments down because you do want all your vegetables to be below the level of the water So adding a bag with water on top acts as your weight It falls so because the weight of the water pushes the bag against the sides of the container It also creates a seal that acts like an airlock now Your ferment is going to off gas. It's gonna create co2 is the bacteria break it down and As the pressure builds it'll be fine because the air will be able to escape up the sides of the bag here and get out of the container But Because there's a water seal around the edge. It'll keep other contaminants from getting in All I do from this point is I throw a lid loosely on top You don't want to seal it because you do want the gases to escape as it's fermenting and then I'm just gonna stick this somewhere Cool back on a shelf to sit for a few days Now It is getting into summer Typically you do a lot of your fermenting in the fall as you're going into cooler weather so that it'll be able to sit out without getting too strong and When you're fermenting in cooler weather, it'll take a few more days for it to go because it's pretty warm This will probably only take a few days. I'm gonna start checking it like two or three days and see how they're coming along Basically, you can let it ferment for as long as you want as long as you still find it Find that it tastes good this particular one I'm gonna start checking it around day two or three to see how I like them and Then I'll start eating them as soon as they're at the point where I like the flavor I'm gonna stick this in the coolest place. We have we've got a dark corner no windows stays pretty cool back there and Then I'll just leave it there typically With a ferment like this if you've got it to the point where you like the flavor and you want to halt the fermentation Then you would stick it in the fridge. We don't have the fridge space for that right now so I'm just gonna stick it in the coldest place we've got and That'll keep the ferment nice and slow so that I've got time to work through these I will check back in a couple of days and report on how the flavor is Hey a couple things that I forgot to mention while I was filming that First is that if you do fill your container too full and it gets going pretty good The ferment can actually cause your container to overflow Best practice is to stick your container on a plate or on a cookie sheet or on a towel or something to catch Any liquid if it does overflow The other thing that I didn't mention is that the reason we're putting brine in the bag is Just in case the bag is punctured or something you want The liquid in the bag to be the same percentage of brine as the liquid in your ferment Just in case the two mix it gets punctured somehow So that you aren't diluting your fermentation Hey guys, it's been four days the ferment is well underway at this point and I wanted to go ahead and show you how it's turning out All right I'm not sure if you can actually see this on the camera, but it is bubbling away You can see some of these larger bubbles here, but there's some active fermentation happening in here And this is what they look like so far you can see the brine's getting nice and cloudy It's a sign that everything's working the way it should be Go ahead and give them a taste test All right, here we go and cheers Mm-hmm. I'm starting to get that great fermented flavor. I like my ferments to be pretty sour the longer you let them go the sour they're gonna get of course with fermentation it's a Lactic acid not an acetic acid like you're gonna get with the vinegar pickles. So it's not gonna be Quite the same kind of sour, but they will get more sour the longer that they sit In this case, I only put the chives in it for seasoning and I'm wanting a little bit more flavor so the great thing about ferments is you can go ahead and add something in after your initial setup and I Don't have anything fresh coming out of the garden right now as far as seasoning But I do have some dill seeds and I'm gonna go ahead and add some of those in All right, here are the dill seeds that I have from the store. I just pulled the plastic back a little bit I'm gonna add a bunch of these guys in I Mean this is a pretty big batch, so I'm gonna add quite a bit that should be good Mix it in a little bit with a fork here, although They won't mix in super well Until they absorb some water but That should be good enough I'll just Make sure they all end up in the water cover back over with a plastic and A few days that flavor should be Incorporating into the flavor of the pickles, but overall they're pretty good I'm looking forward to how they turn out with the seasoning, but As far as I'm concerned this batch is done you can Go ahead and if you're doing smaller batches you can store them in the fridge or if you have enough fridge space and you're Doing a big batch like this you can store it in the fridge they'll continue to get more sour the longer that they sit out at room temperature and If they're getting to a point where it's the maximum amount of sourness that you like you can stick them in the fridge and That'll slow the fermentation down so that it doesn't get sour super quickly and Yeah, the great thing about for mints is that if you don't like the flavor of them you can go back through and add seasonings after the fact just like I did and Really you're not limited on What you ferment pretty much anything you're pulling out your garden or even things that you're picking up for the grocery store can Be fermented just like this. I love this great plastic bag system where you just fill the top with brine and it creates a nice little airlock a Lot simpler than using like the airlocks to fit onto a mason jar or something like that Even though you can use this system with a mason jar, so you aren't limited on container You're not limited on airlocks. You're not limited on vegetables Everything about this is great. Alright, that's it for this video guys. If you liked it be sure to hit the thumbs up and subscribe Let me know down in the comments what your favorite things to ferment are and if you've got any Interesting methods like the one I showed in this video that you like to use for fermentation One other thing my friend Emma over at the permaculture pantry just lost a loved one She doesn't know that I'm doing this But I love if we could band together and go show her some some support I'll leave a link to her channel down in the description Go watch some of her videos give her some thumbs up and some comments I'm sure she'd really appreciate seeing that she's got a community here that supports her That's it for this video. So Two thousand subscribers and beyond Thank you