In today’s episode of the Grow Edible Podcast, I chat with Michael Judd, the author of Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist about how to create a food forest. Michael has an interesting history; he spent his early adulthood in rural Latin America, including living with a Mayan community in Guatemala. These experiences gave him a…
Recent Posts
August Garden Photo Tour
On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s nearly September. Summer can’t be this far along, can it? On the other, I am shocked that we probably still have 4 to 6 weeks of reasonable growing conditions before fall really, truly shoulders aside summer. This has been the best summer I can remember for the…
Tomato Canning Quick Reference Guide
When I was canning up tomatoes this past weekend, and I was sick, so I kept double checking things and kinda getting hazy about what the hell I was doing. Moral of the story: do not attempt to can 100 pounds of tomatoes while sick. But as I was shuffling back and forth to my…
On Depression
I take medication for depression. I’m fine. Don’t worry. But for awhile, some time after my son was born, I wasn’t okay. I dealt with being not okay pretty well, and kept up the facade of okay until one day when the facade cracked and I threw a bowl of blueberries across the kitchen and…
{Giveaway} Lee Reich on Landscaping with Fruit and Uncommon Edibles
There are moments when audacity pays off. For years – years! – I’ve been full-on Fan Girl for garden writer Lee Reich. Lee’s been writing incredibly useful, readable books and magazine articles for decades and I’ve been learning from his expertise for about as long as I’ve been gardening. So when I heard Lee was going…
How And Why To Make An Eco-Lawn
I’ve talked before about how “right sizing” my patch of grass really changed my perspective on “evil, non productive lawn” to something almost like fondness. Well, my thinking on lawn has shifted yet again, and again for the better. We recently converted to an eco-lawn mixture and these days I find myself downright loving my…
Paul Wheaton of Permies.com on Permaculture, Ponds and Perennials
Today on Grow Edible I talk permaculture, earthworks, and perennials with Permies.com founder Paul Wheaton. Paul is the always outspoken, often unorthodox and occasionally wonderfully obnoxious “bad boy” of the Permaculture world. Show Notes Today us today as we discuss: What it takes to run the largest Permaculture forum on the internet. Plant guilds and…
Do You Need To Heat Milk For Yogurt Making?
I recently chatted with my friend Margaret Roach on her radio show, A Way To Garden, about yogurt making. One of the things we discussed was if home yogurt makers can skip the traditional step of heating the milk to 180-degrees and then cooling it back down to 110-degrees for culturing. As it turns out,…
Homestead Collage: An Overview of My Garden
I have had several readers say they need an overview to get themselves kinda settled in to where everything is in my yard. I went up on the roof and took some photos, but that didn’t quite explain how all the various components work. So I turned to the lazy garden planner’s best friend, Google…
Seven Solar Surprises!
It’s been three months since we put solar panels on our roof, and there have been a few surprises. There were things about ourselves and the technology and physics that we didn’t expect. So, as part of our ongoing look at Project Solar, here are a few things I didn’t expect. 1) For Easy Energy…
Can You Seal A Pond With Clay Kitty Litter?
I wanted to build the ducks a pond. In fact, I started on the pond months before we eventually adopted ducks. Now, just so we are clear, our pond isn’t really a pond…it’s more like a very large puddle. It’s about 15 feet by 8 feet and holds about 1000 gallons of water. But for…
Ancona Ducks, Modern Meat Ethics and Saving Endangered Breeds with Boondocker's Farm
What the Wha? A Podcast? In this gig, I have the opportunity to talk to some amazingly cool people who are doing truly great things. Sometimes I even get to walk around with a Press Pass pinned to my boob so I seem all official. It’s all very surreal. Anyway, many of these conversations get…