life on garden time
It’s November, and you know what that means. In just a few weeks, all over the United States people will express their gratitude for family, health, and living in this great nation with the annual turkey-gravy-mashed-potato bender. Thanksgiving is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday. Here’s why: I love to cook and eat with family and [Continue Reading...]
It has come to my attention that many people are unwittingly throwing away free tomato sauce when they preserve their summer tomatoes. Here’s the thing: like all fruit, the skin of tomato is where much of the natural pectin resides. Pectin is the starch that gives jams their thickness and good tomato sauce its natural, [Continue Reading...]
Last April 2nd I took these photos of my newly-constructed Half-Ass Hugelkultur Beds. Today, just shy of three months later they look like this. Can I get a woot-woot for hugels? Other than the massive attack of greenery, one of the biggest changes in this planting area are the twin concrete mesh trellises we installed [Continue Reading...]
In the Seattle urban farming scene, there are a couple of guys – Colin and Brad – who seem to be everywhere. They run the aptly named Seattle Urban Farm Company, and under that moniker set-up and maintain edible gardens in backyards and on restaurant rooftops around the city and teach countless workshops for beginning [Continue Reading...]
I ate my first homegrown strawberry of the year yesterday. You know what that means? It’s time to use up all that damn strawberry jam still kicking around the pantry from 2011. While my love for PB&J only goes so far, my love of Mommy’s Liquid Refreshment knows no bounds. And so, after some arduous recipe development, the [Continue Reading...]
Where I live, far from avocado country, it’s not unusual for organic avocados to be $2.50 or $3 each. “Oh, waaah, you big crybaby,” locavore purists might argue, “avocados are expensive because you live in Seattle, so stop buying non-local food!” To which I reply: “The zombies can have my guacamole when they pry it [Continue Reading...]
Here’s a lovely way to save some time when you prepare apples or Asian pears for canning. Use an apple peeler-corer (see mine at work here) to make beautiful coils of automatically-cored firm fruit. The swirly fruit looks fantastic in the jar, and packs in well for a nice, well-filled raw pack. Don’t get too [Continue Reading...]
Stir-frying is a great technique when you have a little bit of a few things. Often as the garden is just ramping up, you don’t have quite enough of a single vegetable to get a good, solid feed without wiping out all of that vegetable. And then late August comes, and you have too much [Continue Reading...]
Don't need a Garden Planner & Journal? Tips are gratefully appreciated and help pay for blog hosting services, seeds and extra compost to keep the garden and the writing going.
What's this Tip Jar thing all about, anyway?
Latest Comments