life on garden time
Every girl should have a friend who’s witty, opinionated, drives really fast motorcycles and is equally comfortable cooking French food with hand-foraged mushrooms or drinking wine out of a half-pint canning jar. For me, that friend is chef and author Lisa Simpson. Lisa was kind enough to contribute her thoughts here on the perils of [Continue Reading...]
Have you noticed that some of the Big Boys are pretty quiet right now? Have you wondered why? Well, let’s just say that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the US Congress is one heckova brick-maker. This quick video explains the likely legislative consequences of the Stop On-Line Piracy Act (SOPA) [Continue Reading...]
Sometimes we face the question of whether to Do It Ourselves or cough up some cash and let a professional handle the particulars. Let’s say there’s a spectrum: make jam would be an easy DIY call. Perform brain surgery on your child would be an easy Hire The Pros call. In between, things are less obvious. [Continue Reading...]
Some couple friends of ours came over last week and the wife of the couple mentioned that a friend-of-a-friend was, “one of those organic people.” At this point I had to say, “Well, I roll pretty crunchy-granola, too, ya know.” “Yes,” my friend responded, “but you’re not – you know – one of those ‘organic’ [Continue Reading...]
A woman – a great photographer – came by and took pictures of my garden for a book she is doing on urban homesteaders. She was interviewing me and I said something like, “I think if I bought vegetables at the store at this point, I’d feel like a total failure!” This was one of these things [Continue Reading...]
Emily Matchar recently wrote an excellent article for the Washington Post raising the question of whether the “new domesticity” was a step back for women. She asks if the burgeoning popularity of Gen-X jam making is a betrayal of the career-mom-and-microwave-meal life made possible by Baby Boomer feminists, and if radical homemakers risk setting our [Continue Reading...]
A few days ago on the Facebook page I shared a link to an article called, How to Create a Zero-Waste Kitchen and asked the question, “how green is your kitchen?” I gave myself a B-, which, in this era of grade inflation, isn’t a particularly good grade. B- Really? Do I really work this hard – [Continue Reading...]
Late month, noted seed and biotech company Monsanto announced the purchase of Beelogics, a company with a product in trial that may help prevent colony collapse disorder in bees.* In related news, Monsanto has successfully built bee DNA into insect-pollinated crops through genetic engineering. Though the technology is currently being trialed on a limited 3,000 [Continue Reading...]
I’ve been thinking about this. Fall is my favorite harvesting season. If I had to marry a vegetable growing time of year, it would be Fall. Spring is a virgin. She makes you wait. You want Spring in April, but she doesn’t actually put out until late June. I’m all for keeping it buttoned up [Continue Reading...]
My mom was over and asked, “Are your eggs are organic?” “Oh yeah, of course!” I said, “We use organic feed.” But I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s the thing: I’m not sure our eggs are organic. Not really, not technically. I mean, our chickens have a good life. Compared to battery-caged birds they [Continue Reading...]
This is not a political blog. Sometimes my political leanings (which can be summed up as, “leave people more or less alone and don’t be a raging asshole,”) probably poke up, like so many unnoticed weeds in the raised bed of my life. But I try not to focus on politics here, or in my [Continue Reading...]
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