Do me a favor. Don’t call this an Apple-tini, ok? Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, Happy Valentine’s Day! Make this drink for the apple of your eye and prepare to impress. It has all the flavors of a luscious, juicy slice of apple pie without being cloying. The Apple of…
Recent Posts
Forced Molt: Starving Hens For Profit
Lets’s talk about molting. Anyone who has ever kept chickens knows about the molt, that egg-production pause where hens shed old feathers and turn into tiny, ugly dinosaurs for a few weeks. During the molt, a natural response to reduced daylight, egg laying stops. Chicken’s can’t throw energy into making new feathers and eggs at the same…
4 Sensational Winter Salads To Eat Now
Last Sunday I presented a garden-to-table cooking demo called Sensational Cool Season Salads at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. I showed how to make salads that highlight great winter produce. I’m always a huge bundle of nerves before any public speaking engagement, but I think it went pretty well. I crammed four salad demos…
The Naughty Belle Cocktail: How Ladies Who Lunch Drink Bourbon
Ah, The South. Where the women are elegant, the peaches are juicy and the booze is Bourbon. Let a Southern Belle loose in the pantry and she might very well develop this cocktail. It’s strong balanced with sweet, homegrown, and very easy to love. Just like a Southern woman. I’m going to assume that every…
Dirt-Busting Sugar Hand Scrub For Gardeners
I am the queen of perma-dirt. You know those lines of dirt on the edges of your index fingers and thumbs? With all the time I spend playing in the garden, that area on me looked like I’d gotten a dirt tattoo for about a decade. I once asked folks on my Facebook page how…
{Giveaway} Scratch and Peck Organic Chicken Feed
When I first got hens, I didn’t understand how critical they would become to the entire system of my productive home. I just had that fresh-egg fantasy. You know the one: pastel-hued eggs in a Pinterest-worthy little wire basket. They would be laid by happy, fluffy hens and I would have omelets that were as…
How Green Is Your Organic Soil Amendment?
This is a guest post from Rachel of Dog Island Farm. Rachel and her husband Tom intensively urban farm a quarter acre parcel in the San Francisco Bay area. They are pretty famous in the urban homesteader world for going a year without stepping foot in a grocery store and providing no-nonsense advice on urban…
To Do In The NW Edible Garden: February 2014
February always feels like the first real month in the garden to me. Sure there’s a few things to do in January, if you want. But my first real round of seed starting happens around mid-month. Count forward 6 weeks and it’s the beginning of April – the perfect time to put hardy brassica transplants…
Rosemary Meyer Lemon Drop
The Rosemary-Lemon thing has been mainstream for awhile now. Lemon Cake with Rosemary Glaze, Rosemary and Lemon Roast Chicken, Rosemary Lemon Shortbread Cookies, Rosemary Lemonade…need I go on? The piney qualities of rosemary and the bright spark of lemon are just a winning combo. This drink is no exception. Seasonal Meyer lemons and still-verdant rosemary…
How To Grow Arugula In The Pacific Northwest
It is inconceivable to me that arugula of all plants got pinned as a vegetable of elitism in American politics. Are you kidding me? Belgium endive, sure. Forcing chicons in the middle of winter just screams “I have people to do that for me.” Even cauliflower I could see; that’s one finicky veg. But arugula?…
How To Make Beef Jerky At Home (With Four Recipes)
Jerky is a favorite snack around here. The kids will eat it as willingly as sweet stuff like muffins or cookies, and it’s easy and lightweight enough to carry around in a jacket pocket or mom purse. The only issue we have with jerky is the price – have you costed out grass-fed beef jerky…
What Does Climate Change Mean For Gardeners?
A few weeks ago the smartest dude I know got a bit maudlin about how warming waters over the Arctic and methane burping forth from the melting permafrost is likely to increase the speed and effects of climate change. (Read more here and here.) This, in combination with the polar vortex in the midwest and the…