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…
Paul Wheaton of Permies.com on Permaculture, Ponds and Perennials
Today on Grow Edible I talk permaculture, earthworks, and perennials with Permies.com founder Paul Wheaton. Paul is the always outspoken, often unorthodox and occasionally wonderfully obnoxious “bad boy” of the Permaculture world. Show Notes Today us today as we discuss: What it takes to run the largest Permaculture forum on the internet. Plant guilds and…
Do You Need To Heat Milk For Yogurt Making?
I recently chatted with my friend Margaret Roach on her radio show, A Way To Garden, about yogurt making. One of the things we discussed was if home yogurt makers can skip the traditional step of heating the milk to 180-degrees and then cooling it back down to 110-degrees for culturing. As it turns out,…
Homestead Collage: An Overview of My Garden
I have had several readers say they need an overview to get themselves kinda settled in to where everything is in my yard. I went up on the roof and took some photos, but that didn’t quite explain how all the various components work. So I turned to the lazy garden planner’s best friend, Google…
Can You Seal A Pond With Clay Kitty Litter?
I wanted to build the ducks a pond. In fact, I started on the pond months before we eventually adopted ducks. Now, just so we are clear, our pond isn’t really a pond…it’s more like a very large puddle. It’s about 15 feet by 8 feet and holds about 1000 gallons of water. But for…
Ancona Ducks, Modern Meat Ethics and Saving Endangered Breeds with Boondocker's Farm
What the Wha? A Podcast? In this gig, I have the opportunity to talk to some amazingly cool people who are doing truly great things. Sometimes I even get to walk around with a Press Pass pinned to my boob so I seem all official. It’s all very surreal. Anyway, many of these conversations get…
July Garden Photo Tour
I haven’t shown you guys the garden in awhile – it’s looking great this year because we’ve had more sun and heat than is typical. That’s pushing ripeness and growth rates higher. Result? Super lushness and happy gardener! I snapped quite a few photos so I’m trying a new thing and turning them into a…
{Giveaway} Can Seeds Save The World? A Conversation with Tom Stearns of High Mowing Organic Seeds.
Regular readers know that I’m pretty proud to have High Mowing Organic Seeds as a sponsor. Now, I’m more proud than ever. High Mowing has always been 100% organic, and soon will be the first and only seed house to be certified non-GMO by the Non-GMO Project. They are defining what it is to be an ethical…
I'm Writing A Book And You Can Help
I soft-launched an announcement about this about a month ago, but shit’s gotten real on the Write A Book front, so I wanted to keep you guys in the loop. First, the Big Announcement, if you missed it when I snuck it in the first time around: yup, I’m writing a book. It is a…
Help! Garden Anxiety! (Reader Question)
Sophie wrote to me a few days after I posted this photo on my Facebook page. She wanted to know if my garden had always looked this healthy. Hello! Quick question! Do you feel like your garden always looked this nice and healthy? Or did it take you time? Time to improve the soil, learn…
Thai Red Curry Cabbage Salad
A few months ago I planted a half-bed of Caraflex cabbage, a new-to-me variety that has become my official favorite fresh eating cabbage. This pointy-headed cabbage has performed wonderfully for me on dense spacing, so I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I’ve made basically one thing with it. That’s not to say the cabbage has gone to…