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Archives for January 2015

34January 28, 2015Homestead Animals by Erica

Chicken Rotation: Optimizing For Year-Round Laying From The Backyard Flock

Disclaimer: if you think of your chickens as pets, if you let them live out their full, natural lives regardless of economics of laying productivity vs. feed, then this may not be the post for you. While there is nothing graphic in this post, it assumes the reader is comfortable with the concept of slaughtering livestock. This…

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35January 26, 2015Food Preservation by Erica

Better Homemade Vanilla Extract

With all that holiday baking and homemade gift giving I’ll bet you ran through a fair bit of vanilla extract. Good news! If you start a new batch now it will be absolutely perfect for the 2015 holiday season. Homemade vanilla extract is about as simple a DIY as you could hope for, and the…

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7January 23, 2015Cooking by Erica

The Jasmine Tea-tini

Oscar Wilde is credited with perhaps the world’s best quip about manners: “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.” Yeah, just take a minute and let it sink in. I feel the same way about cocktails: “A good cocktail will never get you drunk unintentionally.” My preference is for drinks that leave no room…

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5January 21, 2015Motherhood by Erica

{Reader Question} Can You Homestead with Kids?

I received a question the other day from reader Andrea about how to keep up with a “homesteader” type lifestyle when you have kids. I would love to know where you were in this journey when you had babies and how you were able to keep up with it. We currently live a similar life (gardens, chickens,…

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11January 19, 2015Homestead Animals by Erica

Sand Litter Bed In The Chicken Coop: An Experiment

We’ve been managing our chicken coop through a hybrid sand and deep litter system. This hybrid system has worked extremely well in our particular coop. Briefly, how that system works is, the chickens roost over the sand, which acts like kitty litter to dry out their overnight poop, and in the morning the poop is raked to the…

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4January 16, 2015Cooking by Erica

The Rosemary Gin Gimlet

On New Year’s Eve I went to one of my favorite restaurants with my favorite people and drank a Gin Gimlet. (Okay, okay, three Gin Gimlets. You know me so well.) It was nice to get reacquainted with the Gimlet – it’s an old friend I haven’t quaffed in a long while. The Gimlet is…

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7January 15, 2015Gardening by Erica

Is Cheap Seed Hurting Your Garden? Germination Rate, Vigor, and Why You Should Care

Sometimes, cheap seeds just cost too much. I’m going to explain why in a second, but first I want you to imagine for a minute that you are pulling up to a gas station to fuel your car. There are two pumps, and each will dispense different fuels. Pump A sells fuel that costs $7…

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0January 13, 2015Cooking by Erica

Mache Salad with Pickled Beets and Goat Cheese

Pickings are mighty slim in the garden right now, but I do have mache. This freely self-sowing (not to say weedy) tender salad green is the most green thing I’ve picked in months. While I was looking the other way, it’s filled an entire bed with these little, nutty rosettes. I like mache, I really…

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3January 12, 2015Gardening by Erica

That Time They Let Me On TV (Modern Homesteading on Growing a Greener World)

You may remember that back in September I had the amazing experience of hosting the Growing a Greener World TV crew so they could film my garden and we could talk about modern homesteading and family. In case you missed it, here’s the TL;DR: super talented TV people came to my house to put me…

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18January 9, 2015Cooking by Erica

Grandpa's Cold Cure Cocktail

At this time of year, no one would blame you if you were a bit partied out. From Thanksgiving to New Years tends to be a glutton-fest of rich food, sweets and frequent libation. I’m eager to revive the ol’ Friday Cocktail Tradition around here, but sympathetic to folks who may be feeling like a…

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954January 8, 2015Food Preservation by Erica

How To Make Canadian Bacon At Home

One thing above all others makes my kids happy: Canadian Bacon and Pineapple Pizza. (I’ll admit, I’m fond of it, too.) So, confident in my general bacon-making abilities I embarked on a Canadian Bacon making experiment. I’m happy to report that homemade Canadian Bacon is, if anything, even easier than belly bacon and tastes great in…

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6January 7, 2015Uncategorized by Erica

The Best Books For Every Gardener

As a gardener and big ol’ book-lovin’ nerd, I get asked for book recommendations all the time. Here’re all my favorite and most recommended edible gardening books all in one spot. I own, read, love and consistently refer back to all these books. The links on this page are affiliate links. If you shop through these…

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Hi! I'm Erica, the founder of NWEdible and the author of The Hands-On Home. I garden, keep chickens and ducks, homeschool my two kids and generally run around making messes on my one-third of an acre in suburban Seattle. Thanks for reading!

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