It’s that time of year. The weather’s warming. The birds are nesting. The garden’s calling.
Cold weather crops are well underway.
Seedlings are put outside for a few hours a day to start hardening.
When they all come back inside, there’s hardly a flat surface free. Time to seriously think about the benefits of a small greenhouse.
Also time to double the garden size.
I’m seeing lots of hot showers for sore back muscles in my future.… Read More
Barbara Kingsolver brought the idea of locivore food growing and buying to the fore with her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. In it, she speaks to the value of focusing on eating locally instead of using fossil fuel to transport food long distances.
While Kingsolver feels a moral and environmental obligation to do so, most people are starting to feel a financial obligation to do so. The price of fresh fruits and vegetables (especially organic) is … Read More
In my previous post, a reader had a question about seeds. My response was getting long, so I decided to share it here. I’m sure there are other would-be gardeners who also aren’t clear on the differences.
Jo at Ecology of a Woman asked about three types of seeds — Heirloom, Hybrid, and GMO (genetically modified organisms). I’ll add one more type — Open Pollinated (of which Heirloom is a subset).
Here’s the quick run-down:
Hybrid Seeds are produced by … Read More
Oh the weather outside is frightful.
It’s been hovering around -15 F in the mornings around here. And we’ve had quite a lot of snow already. Deep winter is upon us.
But the fire is so delightful.… Read More
I ask you, what does it take to get a real English Scone in this country? Those hockey pucks that our stores and eateries have masquerading as scones are an insult.
Okay, I know. I’m sounding like a bit of a snob. And while there isn’t another snobby bone in my body– when it comes to scones, I just want the real thing.
Why? You ask.
Well, long long ago and far far away, back when I lived in England, … Read More
To Break Scape or Not to Break Scape?
That is the question no more.
When I first started growing garlic, I’d read that breaking the scapes (the flower stalks) off the garlic plants soon after they appeared would allow the bulbs to grow bigger (and so I’d always broken the scapes). Made sense, logically speaking; the energy that would be used to grow the scapes would then be forced down into the bulb. I wanted to test this logic for … Read More
I’m true to my mostly Italian Heritage; I can find a way to add garlic to nearly any meal. I’ve long gone through all my garlic bulbs, and am down to the dregs of my minced garlic (above left). I’ve got another month and a half before my garlic plants (above right) are ready to pull. With the help of my brothers and sister cleaning me out (they fight over my garlic), it doesn’t look like I’m gonna make it. … Read More
There’s something about the smell of freshly baked bread filling the house. Having grown up in a 300 year old house with a beehive oven in the walk-in fireplace, us kids grew up baking our own bread. It’s a holiday tradition the grandkids now carry on.
With a fireplace like this, how could you not bake bread?!
Here’s a better look at the beehive oven hidden behind the hanging pot.
First, we’d get a roaring fire going in there. When … Read More
