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urban homesteading in the pacific northwest

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Guest Posts

17March 25, 2014Gardening by Erica

Andean Root Vegetables for the Pacific Northwest and Beyond

Today’s post comes to you from Bill Whitson. Bill is the co-owner of Cultivariable Seeds, an independent breeder and supplier of seeds and plants, specializing in Andean vegetables and other unusual and hard-to-find edibles for the Pacific Northwest. He was kind enough to put together this incredible primer on cultivating oca, yacon, mashua and ulluco for folks…

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7March 4, 2014Gardening by Grace

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…

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9February 4, 2014Gardening by Erica

How Green Is Your Organic Soil Amendment?

This is a guest post from Rachel of Dog Island Farm. Rachel and her husband Tom intensively urban farm a quarter acre parcel in the San Francisco Bay area. They are pretty famous in the urban homesteader world for going a year without stepping foot in a grocery store and providing no-nonsense advice on urban…

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88August 30, 2012Food Preservation by Erica

How To Make Jerky At Home with Venison or Elk

Some urban homesteading families have the inclination and skill to go beyond gleaning and gathering and put their meat on the table – literally – through hunting and fishing. Anisa Schell’s family is one, and today I am thrilled to share her recipe for Wild Game Jerky.  Anisa blogs at Lazy Homesteader and gets dirt under her…

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3June 12, 2012Gardening by Sarah

Be Not Discouraged (If Your Garden Doesn’t Look Like Erica’s)

Meet Ugly Garden: I’m not a long-time reader of Northwest Edible Life. I’m not a long time gardener either. Both these afflictions are rather new for me. I started my measly little Ugly Garden in earnest last year, with just two beds and some picket fencing repurposed from the neighbor’s dump pile. One of those…

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0April 25, 2012Gardening by Erica

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…

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19February 6, 2012Gardening by Erica

Worst Soil Amendment For Tomatoes?

Rachel Shadoan is a writer of exceptional wit. I know because she posted a story of gardening loss on the NW Edible Facebook page that was both so terrible and so hilarious that I read it twice. I asked for her permission to share her tale of tomato-growing woe (and lessons learned) here. This story appeared originally on Rachel’s…

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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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