Let’s imagine for a moment that this isn’t a corner of the internet dedicated to growing vegetables, cooking good food, hanging out with chickens and periodically swearing. Let’s image this is Upworthy.com, a website dedicated to sharing mildly interesting and/or uplifting things marketed with the most annoying yet compelling headlines ever. If Upworthy were to…
Recent Posts
Reader Question: What Foods Should I Preserve?
My wife and I are newer to the preserving game and are super pumped on it. Last year we preserved a lot of food but it wasn’t really conducive to living off of. We canned mostly jams, jellies, some pickled veggies (cauli, beans, asparagus, etc) and then did a lot of peaches! What I hope…
The Killer Hamburger Bun (Or, How Not To Get Your Point Across)
People are passionate about the shit they are passionate about. That’s cool. There are many topics that inspire crazy levels of excitement and dedication in me that other people find totally pointless and boring (“Let’s talk about succession sowing kale some more, can we, can we please?!”) On the other hand, fourteen seconds of polite conversation…
Three Steps To Clean, Poop-Free Eggs
If you are a chicken-keeping gardener like me, you know that the second-best thing hens give you is eggs. The first best thing they give you is their awesome nutrient rich poop! As grateful as I am for both the poop and the eggs, I prefer them to be gifted separately. Typically if the eggs…
Eat From The Larder Challenge: Week Two Wrap Up
Well, here we are, two weeks into the Eat From The Larder Challenge. I’m starting to get resentful about constantly having to feed people. And this is weird, because I typically love feeding people. This past week was Spring Break, so the kids were home. It’s like they get hungry 74 times a day. I…
Tamarind Tequila Rita
Right, I know. Tequila. You’re saying to yourself, “I don’t drink tequila. See, there was this one time in college and all I remember is I woke up on that grassy patch in front of the Mechanical Engineering building when the sprinkler started and hit me in the face and somehow my underwear was on…
{Giveaway} The Bountiful Container + High Mowing Container Gardening Seeds
Not everyone has a Back 40. Many urban gardeners are working with aggressive space constraints (“Patio 4?” anyone?) but still want the joy of planting, harvesting and cooking homegrown veg. For these gardeners, container growing is sometimes the best or only option. Nearly every crop that can be grown in ground can also be grown…
The Time In The Garden Formula
I have developed a formula which I think allows us to estimate how much time and labor a food growing piece of land will take. Size of Land x Diversity of Plantings x Intensity of Management = Time and Labor required! Now, there are no units associated with this formula, so it’s not going to…
Will A Broody Hen Adopt Chicks?
Our Buff Orpington Goldie was broody. Really broody. I’ve had hens go broody before and they always seem to just get over it within about a week. Because I don’t rely on eggs for my income and the broodiness I’ve seen has been short-lived, I’ve never bothered to “break” a broody hen with a broody…
The Psychology of Limited Choices: Eat From The Larder Challenge Week One
“Mom, can we go to The Muffin Store?” asks my son, again. Visits to the local cafe he calls The Muffin Store – because the muffins are fabulous – had become something of a post-preschool tradition for us. A few times a week after I picked him up, we would walk the several blocks to…
The Hemingway Daiquiri
Ernest Hemingway is one of my father’s favorite authors. I grew up surrounded by The Old Man And The Sea, The Sun Also Rises and For Whom The Bell Tolls (about that last one – don’t ask). My favorite Hemingway piece has always been The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Or maybe A Clean,…
Bee Friendly Gardening In The Pacific Northwest
Seems like some people insist on not knowing what they’ve got till it’s gone. And that’s kinda how it is with bees, and pollinators in general. Most of what we think of as food is highly dependant on our pollinating insect friends.* All fruit, tree nuts, squash, seeds for most vegetables, chocolate… Oh, never mind, I don’t…