How Tos & Tutorials – Farcyde's Stuff

How to: Grow Basil at Home

April 30, 2023 farcyde

I sincerely love Basil. Best used fresh, this herb an enrichment for for a lot of dishes from pesto to all kinds of pasta, also poultry and countless sauces and even soups. Always a great addition.

Unfortunately, Basil a is a little diva-ish to have around and grow. I f***ed up numberless times when I tried to grow or even just maintain my basil plants, but finally, meanwhile I seem to have developed at least a little knack for it. I have actually managed to germinate as well as propagate, grow, perpetuate and correctly prune several basil plants on my southern windowsill! Here’s what I can share:

Mushroom Cultivation Logs

April 1, 2023 farcyde

I tried inoculating some logs from the garden with mushroom spores. I had some month-old beechwood logs here from the last annual spring tree cleanup which were fresh, solid and wet enough for the task. Furthermore, I stumbled upon some reduced Oyster Mushroom (pleurotus ostreatus) mycelium dowels from the garden center. I don’t know if they’re still capable of reproduction since they’re a little over their expiration date but they seemed lively and fresh enough, so I tried them out.

My kitchen sink drained very slowly and not properly anymore (that’s ok after 10 years of ample use). Thanks to the vastness of the internet I came across an easy and convenient manly hint on the topic requiring only household items, so I tried that.

The summary? In my case, this did actually work 🙂 Here’s how:

Cooking Rice – Knuckle Method

December 18, 2022 farcyde

My. Rice. Cooker. Died. Don’t laugh, this is serious, no kidding. I cooked rice without one before but I’m absolutely not experienced with it and a rice cooker really is very convenient.

Now, lots of people have smiled over Uncle Roger’s hilarious YouTube reaction on somebody’s rice cooking, so, of course I tried his “finger method”, just for the test. No measuring of rice and water, just use your index finger’s knuckles and somewhat “eyeball” everything. There’s a nice and comprehensible explanation here that I shamelessly copied – see below.

And it works! I got fluffy, perfectly cooked and delicious rice. So easy, so convenient, so idiot proof. I’m even thinking about NOT buying a new rice cooker now 🙂

November 13, 2022 farcyde

Now that a year and a half have passed, I have learned geometrically and gained a lot of experience tending to my brave and pretty chickens. So here are my updated notes on chicken care and feeding. Maybe someone will find this useful, since they’re solely born from experience and, well, trial and error – but that makes these notes all the more “original” and reliable for me.

August 18, 2022 farcyde

Now that I’ve had my chickens in the backyard for almost a year and the girls seem to be happy and satisfied enough, here’s my chicken care routine that has resulted from one year of trial and error, experiencing and learning:

July 21, 2022 farcyde

In order to assist my mushroom bags a little in growing I made this so-called “Shotgun Fruiting Chamber” that I stumbled upon here. It’s an easy concept, but afaics it makes perfect sense so I’m going to try it.

July 16, 2022 farcyde

German TV can be a cornucopia of documentaries. Of course: Hitler. Up and down. I can’t stand that guy anymore, just because of his omnipresence. This is presumably the most reliable way to prevent something like this from ever happening again – grinding people’s last nerves with it 🙂

But also interesting stuff! Like for example on professional mushroom growing in an old airforce aircraft shelter. Made me try some cultivation bags on my own again, as I found a left over box of store-bought mycelium in the shed. I didn’t have a clue if it was still any good, but it was worth the try and as usual, I had a little fun.

How to Defrost Your Freezer

May 2, 2022 farcyde

Uahhhh… 🙁 I went to the basement today and discovered this. Seems I’ll have to defrost the fridge (actually, both of my fridges) to make sure they work properly again. Here’s how to do it (this is a manly hint):

How To: Setting Eyelets

April 28, 2021 farcyde

The raised beds in the garden dearly needed some protective layer for the still cold nights here in northern germany, thus, we bought some bed liners. They’re sold by the meter, so we had to attach some eyelets for fastening them to ground with tent pegs ourselves. Here’s how:

So how do you insert a grommet into fabric, or in my case, plastic sheets? Well, common eyelet sets come with a number of eyelet parts and some special tools, they’re cheap and convenient and available in every hardware store. Left is an overview of what’s in the kit.

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Farcyde's Stuff

Category: How Tos & Tutorials

How to: Grow Basil at Home

Mushroom Cultivation Logs

Homebrew Drain Cleaner

Cooking Rice – Knuckle Method

Update: Chicken Care Cheat Sheets

Chicken Care Routine

“Shotgun Fruiting Chamber”

Mushroom Cultivation Bags

How to Defrost Your Freezer

How To: Setting Eyelets

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