The garden has had a spinach ka-boom moment. I was waiting patiently for my spinach to size up, and now, oh boy, has it. But that’s not something to complain about, really. Spinach is tasty, quick to wash up, and always on those magazine lists of “Foods You Must Eat To Be Healthy.” When faced…
Archives for May 2011
A Public Defense Of The Enthusiastic Beginner
It has come to my attention that some of the best voices on the internet – writers I admire and read and am dedicated to – would rather chew their own arms off than see another damned blog post about homemade yogurt. Okay, I get it. It’s yogurt. Homemade yogurt is so done. Jams and…
Hope In A Bottle
For the first 30ish years of my life, I enjoyed stuff as much as the average American. I bought a lot of it, and used it, and got pissed off when I had to dust it. When my stuff got a little long in the tooth, I tossed it out and bought more stuff. Several…
Moving To The Big-Girl Coop
On Saturday the chickens were moved from their indoor Pack & Play brooder to their permanent home – the outdoor coop. The chickens are five weeks old and seem fully feathered to my new-chicken-keeper eyes so we decided it was time for them and their constant, unending pooping to move outside. We put down a…
A Tour Of The Trellises
When we hit up the Seattle Tilth Plant Sale a few weeks ago, we arrived early and had some time to kill before we could start plant shopping. This gave us some time to walk around the Good Shepherd P-Patch. I was struck by how many methods p-patchers were using to trellis their peas and…
Life At Walking Speed
The stars aligned yesterday. Everyone was up and dressed early, it was a beautiful sunny morning, breakfast and a packed school lunch came together without a fuss. My daughter was done eating her breakfast and we had an easy half-hour until we had to be at the bus stop, so we walked. It’s a long half-mile to…
The Addictive Power Of Pork Fat
Well, I don’t usually echo Emeril Lagasse, but pork fat really does rule. I’ve known vegetarians who hot-rodded their Boca patty with bacon when they thought people weren’t looking, and any meat product that can find its way into desserts is a force to be reckoned with. But pork fat isn’t just bacon. For as long as…
Can You Get Arrested if You Kill-A-Watt?
My local library system has partnered with my local power company to make Kill-A-Watt energy meters available for check-out, just like a book or video. A few weeks ago, I checked out a Kill-A-Watt. These things look like a remote control and a power strip had a baby. You plug your appliance into the Kill-A-Watt,…
The Simplest Salad In The World
Salad days are here. My lettuce is responding to our cool drizzly weather by growing big and verdant and tender. Say what you will about a crappy, sunless spring; the lettuce loves it. Thanks to an over-eager over-seeding of lettuce back in February, I have a bed of lettuce to eat, and it all looks like this:…
Sowing Peas in Guttering: Wherein I Grudgingly Admit This Technique Rocks
Every American gardening book I own says you absolutely must direct sow peas because they loathe root disturbance. Every British gardening book I own advocates sowing peas early in the season in a length of guttering. They always use this exact phrase – length of guttering – and whenever I read it, my internal dialog…
Urban Homesteading for Corporate Tools
For those of you transitioning from the corporate world to the homestead, I have prepared this helpful guide, dual homed with one foot in a Muck Boot and the other in a Wingtip Oxford. Though they may seem divergent, the core competencies of gardening and cubicle wrangling are not so different after all. The language…
How To Turn A Pack-and-Play Into A Chicken Brooder
I am learning what every first-time chicken keeper knows: chickens grow fast. At three weeks old, our 6 birds had outgrown their rubbermaid brooder. They were getting a bit too excited about their flight feathers and were constantly crashing into things, like the mesh ceiling of their brooder. They clearly needed more free ranger space. Thankfully,…