How’s your larder looking? Mine is pretty spartan. This is a great time of year to assess your larder and see what you’ve eaten tons of and what hasn’t been a hit. If you make some notes now about what your family really eats, before the furor of canning season comes upon us, there’s a good chance…
Archives for 2012
Giveaway: Mother Earth News Fair Weekend Passes
Are you tired of amazing giveaways yet? Nah, me neither. The second annual Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup (“pyew-AL-up,” for non-Washingtonians) is happening soon, on the weekend of June 2-3, and I’ve got a pair of tickets to give away. We went last year and it was fantastic. I saw Joel Salatin, who is…
Mother’s Day: A Radical Act of Defiance
Secretly, creeping through the brain and heart and blood of every mama there is a deep, dark fear that we are Not Mom Enough. We snap at our kids, or grab the sharpie out of their little hand a bit too roughly before they can decorate another piece of furniture, or are the last to…
Notes From A Synthetic Environment
For the past five days I’ve been living in an unreal, unearthly limbo. I’m at a professional conference, in a 34 story hotel, in Chicago. I could easily have no idea what time it is. I certainly have no idea what the weather is like. My menus over the past few days read something like this:…
Side-Dressing: A Feeding Strategy For Plants and Kids
For a year-and-a-half I felt terrible guilt that I was ignoring my daughter. Reasonable observers would assure me that I was not neglecting her, but in my heart I knew that the attention lavished on her had diminished markedly since the birth of our son. You see, our daughter was a home-schooled only-child for six-and-a-half years. She got…
Coop Improvement: Nesting Box Failures and Successes
The nesting box is a pretty important part of the coop – it’s where the chickens, hopefully, lay their eggs. Our nesting box has seen a couple of modification lately. One worked. One really didn’t. Let’s start with the failure, shall we? Fail! Using Shredded Paper For Nesting Box Material In an effort to turn…
Your Seedlings Hate Your Fancy Window: How Plants See Light
Two months ago, Erica posted comparison photos showing seedlings started in a south-facing window vs seedlings started under full-spectrum grow lights. The results were surprising to many readers (including me!) and at least a few readers invested in grow lights after seeing the difference light makes. There are a few reasons why windowsill started seedlings…
DIY Mason Jar Stir-Fry Sauce
Stir-frying is a great technique when you have a little bit of a few things. Often as the garden is just ramping up, you don’t have quite enough of a single vegetable to get a good, solid feed without wiping out all of that vegetable. And then late August comes, and you have too much…
To Do In The Northwest Edible Garden: May 2012
What a change from last year, huh? It has been a gorgeous spring. Evenings are still dipping into the mid-to-low 40s (tonight is projected to be 41 in my neighborhood!) but the days have been great gardening weather – mostly clear, with enough sun to make gardeners happy and enough overcast to make transplants happy….
Urban Farm Magazine Seed Starting Challenge Winners
Big Congrats to Marie, the winner of our seed starting challenge! Marie is growing strawberries and artichokes from seed for the first time. Great job! Check your email for info on how to get your certificate for a year’s subscription to Urban Farm Magazine. Also congrats to At Home On Paradise Cove, who is the…
The Homesteading Hypocrite
The moment I launched this website I started down a path towards raw hypocrisy. I had no idea at the time that this was what I was doing, and it certainly wasn’t my intention. Nonetheless, looking back over the past year+ of posting, it is clear that hypocrisy was inevitable. I have these ideals, you…
Improve Your Soil With Chemical Exudates (It's Not What You Think)
Guest post by Kelly Scott of Sweet Bay Farm. Thanks Kelly! The more I learn about farming, the more I realize that plants are truly wondrous things. It’s easy to think plants are boring and passive. After all, they just sit there. But here’s some news! Plants are powerful chemists and very active participators in their…