May is a month of promise – amnesia about last year’s failures has taken hold and it’s easy to convince ourselves that this will be the year everything goes right. Weeds will never germinate, pests and diseases will not visit us, perfectly ripe produce will leaps forth like Athena from the forehead of Zeus and…
Dos and Don’ts for Cheapskates
I recently heard about a show called Extreme Cheapskates that sounded like it might be full of interesting money saving tips. I watched a few episodes on Netflix while I was washing dishes. Man, some of the folks profiled on that show aren’t just frugal – they’re nuts! They are stealing from restaurants, embarrassing people,…
How To Feed Baby Chicks
So you’ve got some new little chicks-congrats! Now you have to keep them alive. First job, warmth. Check. Second job, water. Check. Third job, food. How To Feed Your Chicks Ok, chick food. Here’s where it get’s interesting. Layer, starter, grower? Organic, or not? Medicated, or not? What the heck? Do you just buy the first bag with a…
Eat From The Larder Challenge: Week Four Wrap Up
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. As it turns out, “they” are totally full of crap, but for the purpose of this post that doesn’t matter. We are at the tail end of this Eat From The Larder Challenge, and I feels like I’ve found my groove. It feels like the…
Bitters and Soda: A Refreshing Mocktail
I know this might come as a shock, but most evenings I don’t actually want a boozey drink. And there are plenty of afternoons when a true cocktail would be inappropriate anyway (I prefer to be sober when I pick my kid up at the bus stop.) But sometimes I want…something. That’s where this easy,…
Permaculture Parenting
Note: this is a super long post, and much of it is personal story and observation stuff. If you want to just skip to the bottom for the take-away lessons on combining Permaculture with parenting, please feel free. For a while there my son and I were really butting heads. I’ve been at the end…
DIY Non-Toxic Weedkiller That Works
There are situations where you want certain plants dead, but hand weeding is difficult or counter-productive because it will bring fresh seeds to the surface to germinate. This may be a situation for an herbicidal spray. I approach this topic with hesitation, because some of you stopped reading at the second sentence and are right…
Eat From The Larder Challenge: Week Three Wrap Up
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…
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…