My friend Paul Wheaton, Permies.com founder, proudly obnoxious Permaculture man-giant and surprisingly nice guy (shhhh, don’t tell – he has a reputation to maintain) helped develop these Permaculture Playing Cards last year: As I’ve said before, they’re stunning. These cards are gorgeous, handheld works of art. My sole complaint is that, when you do play…
Archives for August 2014
Urban Goats with Rachel Hoff
In this week’s episode of the Grow Edible Podcast, I talk with Rachel Hoff about keeping backyard dairy goats. Rachel and her husband Tom run Dog Island Farm, an urban homestead in the heart of Vallejo, California. In addition to a big garden and the requisite flock of poultry, Rachel manages a flock of adorable dwarf dairy…
Kitchen Tip: 9 By 9 Inch Pan Perfectly Sized For 1 Gallon Freezer Bag
I bake almost all my quick breads and cakes in square 9 by 9 pans. I’ll admit that this started out as a happy accident. Six years ago, in an effort to earn a little extra holiday cash, I took a seasonal job as the Holiday Food Demo Girl at my local mall’s Williams-Sonoma store….
{Giveaway} Creating A Suburban Food Forest with Michael Judd
In today’s episode of the Grow Edible Podcast, I chat with Michael Judd, the author of Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist about how to create a food forest. Michael has an interesting history; he spent his early adulthood in rural Latin America, including living with a Mayan community in Guatemala. These experiences gave him a…
August Garden Photo Tour
On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s nearly September. Summer can’t be this far along, can it? On the other, I am shocked that we probably still have 4 to 6 weeks of reasonable growing conditions before fall really, truly shoulders aside summer. This has been the best summer I can remember for the…
Tomato Canning Quick Reference Guide
When I was canning up tomatoes this past weekend, and I was sick, so I kept double checking things and kinda getting hazy about what the hell I was doing. Moral of the story: do not attempt to can 100 pounds of tomatoes while sick. But as I was shuffling back and forth to my…
On Depression
I take medication for depression. I’m fine. Don’t worry. But for awhile, some time after my son was born, I wasn’t okay. I dealt with being not okay pretty well, and kept up the facade of okay until one day when the facade cracked and I threw a bowl of blueberries across the kitchen and…
Can You Seal A Pond With Clay Kitty Litter? Part 2
So we’ve proved you can use clumping cat litter to seal a pond because clumping cat litter is made of bentonite clay. Now, how do you actually do it? In my first post on this, many people pointed out that actual sodium bentonite clay was available at farm supply type stores. I struck out finding…
{Giveaway} Lee Reich on Landscaping with Fruit and Uncommon Edibles
There are moments when audacity pays off. For years – years! – I’ve been full-on Fan Girl for garden writer Lee Reich. Lee’s been writing incredibly useful, readable books and magazine articles for decades and I’ve been learning from his expertise for about as long as I’ve been gardening. So when I heard Lee was going…
How And Why To Make An Eco-Lawn
I’ve talked before about how “right sizing” my patch of grass really changed my perspective on “evil, non productive lawn” to something almost like fondness. Well, my thinking on lawn has shifted yet again, and again for the better. We recently converted to an eco-lawn mixture and these days I find myself downright loving my…