Earlier this week the Facebook page for this blog hit 20,000 followers. I remember when my Facebook page hit 1,000 followers and I was blown away. We had a giveaway to celebrate! Now, at 20,000, I have to admit the feeling is a bit different. I’m thrilled and humbled and flattered by the milestone, but…
Figs in the Pacific Northwest: Will My Unripe Figs Ripen?
Note: This post has been updated to reflect additional and more accurate information. I don’t think I’ve ever hosed up gardening advice quite so completely as in the first version of this post, but thankfully my readers are amazing and set me straight. Thank goodness for community! I’m getting lots of questions about figs right…
How To Organize Your Spice Drawer With Mason Jars
Like most pretty serious cooks, I have a pretty serious spice collection. I’ve been a fan of buying my spices in bulk at my local Yuppie-Hippie Co-op for years now. The spices you get in bulk, if you are in a place that rolls through their stock, tend to be fresher and of higher quality…
Dry Brushing: The Most Amazing Natural Skin Care Technique You Aren't Using
I recently joined the Church of Dry Skin Brushers and would like to convert you. So let’s talk about the best natural skin care technique you probably aren’t using. It’s called dry brushing and it’s…heavenly. You want reasons to dry brush? Mr. Google will give you plenty: Benefits to Dry Skin Brushing Removes dead skin…
Thoughts At The Turn Of The Season
Life flows. The garden and managing it’s bounty takes hours of my time. Whole weekends get dedicated to putting in spring starts, preserving tomatoes, catching up on weeding when I fall behind, which is often. And then, in the turn of a season, the garden coasts. Weeds slow, crops round into maturity of their own…
Can-o-Rama 2013
This past weekend was pretty much dedicated to canning. Homebrew Husband and I did this last year (see: Can-o-Rama 2012). Dedicating a solid weekend to putting up staple foods like pickles and tomatoes can be a bit of a whirlwind, but it feels fantastic to take the pantry from nearly-bare to nearly-full in 48 hours….
Plum Jamtini Cocktail – Pass The Ice, Pass The Shaker!
My friend Theresa is the Co-Executive Producer of Growing A Greener World, a fantastic TV show about all things gardening. She’s also a wicked good urban homesteader, master canner, great writer (check out her personal blog), and a super nice person. Theresa knows I have a soft spot for combining jam with booze (strawberry jam margarita, anyone?), so…
Fresh Blackberry Sorbet
So, my last post was about making ice cream and then I got busy and haven’t posted in a week and now I’m back with a post about sorbet. This is not what I’d call a blogging win, because clearly I am obsessed with homemade frozen desserts. You can’t really blame me – it’s 85…
Turn Your Homemade Jam Into Easy Homemade Ice Cream
Perhaps, like me, you are rolling into preserving season 2013 with some, shall we say, overstock in certain areas. In 2012 around this time I still had apricot preserves hanging on from 2011. Then I happened into a giant windfall of free apricots. I turned that bounty into cases of delicious homemade apricot preserves and promptly learned…
How Not To Die From Botulism: What Home Canners Need To Know About The World's Most Deadly Toxin
You may have seen this article. A Seattle man recently contracted botulism from his improperly canned elk meat and is lucky to be alive. His description of how he canned the elk is like a checklist for everything you never, ever do when canning food. I love to see so many new people taking up home…
Whole Life Integration: Tips To Simplify Nearly Everything In Your Productive Home
A reader emailed me this past weekend and in a few sentences got right to the heart of why getting started with productive home- and garden-keeping can be so dang challenging. Hi Erica, I’ve been working on getting a garden going and redesigning my life, but the current life really gets in the way. Lots…
Three Simple Steps To Bring Beneficial Insects To Your Garden
You want beneficial insects. All the cool kids have them. Beneficials can protect your crops from “bad bugs”, pollinate your fruit, and have intriguing bug sex on your flowers (and some times, on your beer bottles). But how do you get our beneficial buggy friends to party at your house? Most gardeners know that certain…