I freaking love my reCAP lids. I have 10, a thank-you gift for supporting the initial Kickstarter fund-raising campaign that helped turn reCAPs from a really great idea into a really great reality. The BPA-free plastic, pour-spout lids transform any regular mouth mason jar into a leak-proof, easy-to-use pourable container. I have my Mason Jar Stir-Fry [Continue Reading...]
Urban Farm Magazine Seed Starting Challenge Winners
April 30, 2012 by · 3 Comments
Big Congrats to Marie, the winner of our seed starting challenge! Marie is growing strawberries and artichokes from seed for the first time. Great job! Check your email for info on how to get your certificate for a year’s subscription to Urban Farm Magazine. Also congrats to At Home On Paradise Cove, who is the [Continue Reading...]
Don’t Buy These 5 Williams-Sonoma Agrarian Products
April 10, 2012 by · 56 Comments
Last week Williams-Sonoma branched out from French dishwear, excellent knives and seasonal high-end cocoa mix into urban homesteading gear. With the launch of their Agrarian line, Williams-Sonoma now sells gardening gear, chicken and bee keeping supplies, seeds, edible plants, fruit trees and preserving supplies. Some people in the hardcore DIY community (you know who you [Continue Reading...]
Wall Mounted Clothes Drying Rack, Perfected
April 5, 2012 by · 77 Comments
Last week I talked about building my wall-mounted DIY clothes drying rack from a Freecycled baby play pen. Several readers expressed their concern that my rack as-built wouldn’t allow quite enough airflow to ensure prompt drying. I addressed those concerns temporarily by propping the rack when in-use away from the wall using a fruit tree branch spreader. [Continue Reading...]
Giveaway: Free Range Chicken Gardens and The Fresh Egg Cookbook
April 4, 2012 by ·
Edible gardeners want to eat what they grow. Chicken owners want happy egg-laying helpers. But happy, free-ranging chickens will mess up a veggie patch faster than you can say cotyledon. And that is the conflict garden-growing chicken-owners face. Thankfully, Free-Range Chicken Gardens, the new book by landscape designer and chicken expert Jessi Bloom, tells you how [Continue Reading...]
The Simple Decisions of a Complex Life
March 29, 2012 by · 29 Comments
Want to know why I really keep backyard hens? The eggs are great, the chicken TV is a blast, and the deep-litter compost might actually make our hens a financially reasonable investment. But that’s not really why I have the girls. I keep laying hens because the sum total of the work involved in feeding, [Continue Reading...]
DIY Wall-Mounted Clothes Drying Rack
March 26, 2012 by · 49 Comments
The ad on Freecycle said, Wooden Baby Pen, and described some sort of a freestanding baby jail made from dozens of dowels. With visions of a garden cucumber support in my head, I said I would love to have it, and could promise reliable pick up. Before I could worry about trellising cukes, laundry room inspiration hit [Continue Reading...]
Battle Coffee Pot vs. Microwave: An Energy Cost Analysis
March 20, 2012 by · 30 Comments
For Christmas this year I got a new coffee pot. Among the wonders it offered over and above our old coffee pot (in addition to working) was a fabulous keep-warm feature that holds a pot of coffee at steaming hot perfection for four hours! Amazing, what will they think of next? While I love the [Continue Reading...]
The 7 Best Strength Exercises For Gardeners
March 13, 2012 by · 5 Comments
Gardening can be remarkably physical. Over President’s Day Weekend I converted some lawn area into a wide swath of planting beds. In the process I shoveled, raked, pushed 200 pound filled wheelbarrows around the yard, bent over to grab building materials, squatted down to grab rocks, swung a mattock, split logs, flung weeds, lifted and [Continue Reading...]
What’s Next? The Anti-Inflammation Challenge Wrap-Up
February 29, 2012 by · 12 Comments
A good friend emailed me last night. She pointed out the inflamed elephant in the room: if sleep is my anti-inflammation keystone, spending 3 hours a night after the kids are in bed writing daily blog posts until midnight might not be the healthiest use of my evening hours. Yeah. There’s that. So, dear readers, I’m [Continue Reading...]
Win One Of My Five Favorite Gardening Books
February 28, 2012 by ·
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of milestones here on the blog. First, I launched my first ever sale-able product, The 2012 Garden Journal. The feedback on the Garden Journal has been fantastic. Thank you guys so much for your purchases. They directly support this blog, and – I hope – directly support [Continue Reading...]
Your Personal Health Keystone: Anti-Inflammation Challenge Week 4
February 24, 2012 by · 13 Comments
You know what a keystone is, other than a bad beer and a bad pipeline? It’s the special wedge-shaped center stone in an archway. The integrity of the arch depends on the keystone transferring the stress of a load out and down through the rest of the arch and, ultimately, to the security of the [Continue Reading...]
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