I love food, gardening and economics, so it follows that I’m interested in looking at gardening from an micro and nano-economic perspective. As someone who gardens on a scale large enough to make a pretty significant dent in our family food budget, my gardening hobby is intimately tied to our household budgetary realities. Just another day at…
Archives for September 2011
Walnut Lemon Pesto
This Walnut Lemon Pesto has become my go-to pesto recipe in late summer when the basil is huge and really needs to get cut back before it flowers. While I adore a classic pesto, this version has a few advantages over the traditional pine-nut & parm variety. First, it’s way cheaper to make. No $25-a-pound…
A Pantry Unburied
Let’s recap: two weeks ago the contents of my pantry were on the floor and fake catalog pantries were driving me to drink. Now, I am pleased to report, my pantry is not only usable again, but actually has a bunch of empty shelf space in it, just waiting for me to fill it up with…
Labor Pains And The Harvest
As I sit here writing this, both kids just tucked in, a slew of new little boy’s toys to find a home for, and half a brightly colored, overly-sweet, train-shaped cake sitting picked over on the dining room table, it is one year to the hour since my boy was born. His was a fast labor: 90 minutes…
Lacto-Fermented Salsa
Regular readers may have gleaned (gleaned – ha! harvesting pun!) that Homebrew Husband and I enjoy fermenting stuff. Right at this exact moment, the following is being (deliberately) fermented in our home: 5 gallons blackberry wine 10 gallons of beer (a carboy of pale ale and another of porter) 2 loaves bread dough homemade yogurt 3…
September Gardening Chores For The Pacific Northwest
September is a month of transition. Many of our favorite summer vegetables – green beans, cucumbers, zucchini – will continue to produce well through this month if we keep the plants picked, but the sheer glut of August will begin to give way to broccoli, beets, cabbages and chard as we nudge closer to fall. This is also transition time for the gardener,…
Yield Planning
After, “When do I plant?” the hardest gardening question to wrap you head around is, “How much do I plant?” Everyone, from high-rise gardeners with a few pots to big time farmers with thousands of acres, has to annually decide how much of their land they will allocate to each crop they want to grow….