Urban homesteading, householdering, radical homemaking….call it what you will, the world of glorified housewifery seems, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be dominated by the wifery. Certainly the world of blogging about all this stuff tends to be the realm of the gentler sex (though I’m not sure how much gentler I looked as I slaughtered that chicken or shoveled that…
Negabucks – What's Your Hobby Time Worth?
I love food, gardening and economics, so it follows that I’m interested in looking at gardening from an micro and nano-economic perspective. As someone who gardens on a scale large enough to make a pretty significant dent in our family food budget, my gardening hobby is intimately tied to our household budgetary realities. Just another day at…
Walnut Lemon Pesto
This Walnut Lemon Pesto has become my go-to pesto recipe in late summer when the basil is huge and really needs to get cut back before it flowers. While I adore a classic pesto, this version has a few advantages over the traditional pine-nut & parm variety. First, it’s way cheaper to make. No $25-a-pound…
A Pantry Unburied
Let’s recap: two weeks ago the contents of my pantry were on the floor and fake catalog pantries were driving me to drink. Now, I am pleased to report, my pantry is not only usable again, but actually has a bunch of empty shelf space in it, just waiting for me to fill it up with…
Labor Pains And The Harvest
As I sit here writing this, both kids just tucked in, a slew of new little boy’s toys to find a home for, and half a brightly colored, overly-sweet, train-shaped cake sitting picked over on the dining room table, it is one year to the hour since my boy was born. His was a fast labor: 90 minutes…
Lacto-Fermented Salsa
Regular readers may have gleaned (gleaned – ha! harvesting pun!) that Homebrew Husband and I enjoy fermenting stuff. Right at this exact moment, the following is being (deliberately) fermented in our home: 5 gallons blackberry wine 10 gallons of beer (a carboy of pale ale and another of porter) 2 loaves bread dough homemade yogurt 3…
September Gardening Chores For The Pacific Northwest
September is a month of transition. Many of our favorite summer vegetables – green beans, cucumbers, zucchini – will continue to produce well through this month if we keep the plants picked, but the sheer glut of August will begin to give way to broccoli, beets, cabbages and chard as we nudge closer to fall. This is also transition time for the gardener,…
Yield Planning
After, “When do I plant?” the hardest gardening question to wrap you head around is, “How much do I plant?” Everyone, from high-rise gardeners with a few pots to big time farmers with thousands of acres, has to annually decide how much of their land they will allocate to each crop they want to grow….
Which Caricature Are You?
People come to gardening for many reasons. Have you ever wondered where you stand in the great big world of edible gardening, environmentalism and social awareness? Well not to worry, we’ve designed this Cosmo-inspired quiz that will lead you to greater self-awareness of your particular gardening caricature. Just answer the following questions and check your results…
We Have A Wild Fermentation Winner!
Last week, in honor of hitting 1,000 followers on the NW Edible Facebook page I sponsored a giveaway of one of my favorite preservation books, Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz. Well, we have a winner! A huge congratulations to Kristin, comment number 49. Kristin, you’re the winner of Wild Fermentation! Send me an email (nwedible…
I Grew Some Vegetables, Now What?
Having a productive garden in August is kinda like a having a three-year-old who keeps asking, “Why, mommy? Why?!” You love them, but sometimes you wish they’d just stop and give you a minute of quiet peace. So it is. After months of work, the vegetative horn of plenty arrives in August. Crops are pumping out…
Pantry Ranting
If I see another perfect, straight-out-of Williams-Sonoma pantry filled with quaint matching baskets and lovely labeled glass canisters full-to-bursting with wholesome looking gluten-free grains I’m going to beat someone over the head with my copy of Real Simple. But perhaps I’m just jealous. You see, my pantry – and I am blessed to have an…