Nearly every backyard urban chicken keeper I know has kids. Part of that is probably my demographic (mid-thirties suburban mom in yoga pants – I’m a walking cliche) but I think part of it is that parents my age want their kids to see where food comes from in a way that maybe we didn’t,…
Recent Posts
The Best Vegetable Choices For The Small Garden
I’m a fraud. I bet you are too. If you’re like me, you’ve been drinking Erica’s (spiked) kool-aid. You plan on feeding your entire family with intensive vegetable gardening techniques, gleaning weeds from the neighbors, and only eating seasonally within 100 mile radius. You can probably debate the finer points of Square Food Gardening vs. the…
To Do In The Northwest Edible Garden: March 2014
In like a lion, out like a lamb. That’s what they say about the weather in March, and I suspect that’ll hold true this year. There are always two points during the gardening year when you have to just go on faith that the weather will do, more or less, what you expect it to….
How To Make Simple Syrup
I was at my local Yuppie-Hippie market and saw that you can actually buy Simple Syrup for cocktails. Like, pre-made, with a label and everything. A beautifully designed 12-ounce bottle of the stuff will only set you back about $7. Wait, SEVEN DOLLARS? For sugar water? It’s really quite shocking that I don’t get thrown…
Heavy Duty Potato Cage Results
I’m writing this post kinda under duress. If I don’t write it, several readers are going to show up at my house with pitchforks, demanding answers. People want a follow-up on the Heavy Duty Potato Cages I built last spring, and they want it now, so they can plan for their own potato growing. Totally…
Beet and Apple Salad with Yogurt-Dill Dressing
My kids love this salad. It’s full of big, chunky pieces of roasted beets and apple, and has a mild, creamy dressing. And it’s bright pink, which adds to the fun. If you want something a little more sophisticated than a Barbie Ferrari colored salad at the dinner table, just spoon the dressing over the…
What's Growing Under The Seed Lights in February?
I’ve been ramping up my indoor seed starting over the past several weeks. The first of my spring cole crops and my peppers and tomatoes are just getting to the true leaf stage. I thought you guys might want to see the veggie madness that has taken over my seed starting rack. My first round…
World Domination Gardening?
You guys probably know that the half-ass hugelkultur beds I built a few years ago rock my world. They have been super productive. In fact, I like this permaculture bed-building technique so much that in a recent re-build of some of my old traditional raised beds, I experimented with making a normal raised beds into…
The Marmalade Old Fashioned
Inspiration, Part One I picked up a bin of what I thought was “chicken scraps” from my local yuppie-hippie market a few weeks ago and found myself in possession of a lot of free organic citrus. Since my chickens don’t eat citrus, and since I hate food waste, I made marmalade. My dad used to…
Food Storage For People Who Don’t Hate Food
In the preparedness world, things like this list go around periodically: This is a guide to building your food storage on $5 a week. Ignoring for a minute that food prices have clearly gone up since this list was put together (5 pounds of honey for $5? I don’t think so), my reaction every time…
Relaxing Bed Time Bath Soak
Periodically, I have trouble sleeping. The reason for this is a certain three-year-old boy. I’ve vented about the challenges of having a hard sleeper before. My son’s sleep is better than it used to be, but on a typical day, he still wakes and gets out of bed two or three times between his bedtime…
What To Make When You Have Too Many Eggs
It happens to almost every chicken keeper eventually, I think. Your girls are putting out the eggy goods faster than your family can eat them. Our flock as it currently stands has gifted us up to a dozen eggs in a day, and 8-9 per day is pretty typical. When I find myself staring at…