Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
Our backyard flock has been taking it easy this winter. They have been enjoying a mild winter and took a break from laying eggs. Florence, our Rhode Island Red, and Maude, our Brahma, decided there was enough natural light to start laying again. Since then, the two girls have been giving us an egg or two a day. Pearl, on the other hand, is not
Well, I didn’t get my peas in by President’s Day… but I was damn close! I woke up to a sliver of sunshine outside, stuffed seed packets in my pockets, and made today the first planting day for our new garden. I decided to let my never-ending to-do list just wait while I got some dirt under my nails. The recent winter rains have really
Planting season is just around the corner and it’s time to prep the beds that will soon hold spring crops. You can hardly make out the spinach in my beds through all the chickweed right now. As the winter rains let up for a couple weeks, the ground was nice and soft for one of my favorite winter chores: weeding. Weeding is not everyone’s favorite
My outdoor garden beds have been providing me with a steady supply of the usual winter suspects: kale, swiss chard, spinach, collard greens, leeks, and tasty brussel sprouts. Oregon, especially the Willamette Valley, is fortunate to have relatively mild winters and we pretty much live on brassicas from November through February. This is the first winter I have had the pleasure of gardening with a
Usually winter seems to drag on and on, but not this year. Time is flying by way too quickly for me right now. I’m forcing myself to slow down while the world continues to spin. It feels good, but it feels different from the frantic do-ten-things-at-once-pace that I typically operate at. I’m not doing all the things I “should” be doing right now. I’m not
In the glut of summer tomatoes, I put up several dozen cans of marinara sauce and whole tomatoes. When winter sets in though I tend to forget about them quietly waiting on my shelves. I just adjust to knowing tomatoes do not grow in winter, so I plan meals using seasonally available ingredients for the most part instead. Seed catalogs pouring into the mailbox are
As winter term of my landscape architecture program kicks in, I realized I should do a decent job recapping my project last term! I got to explore beneficial insect-attracting plants, plant species that do well in swales, and other fun ecological issues. I had the pleasure of working with a couple architecture students on the project, which was a challenging but fun learning experience. The
We had a dinner party recently and I tried out a new recipe I found here for Burgundy Pork Tenderloin. It was very low maintenance and really tender. Thought I should pass along my version, as I changed quite a few things. Our Version Pork Tenderloin 4pounds pork tenderloin 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 cloves garlic, minced 4 shallots, halved Two
This is not so much “gardening” related, but I thought those of you readers with kids might appreciate it. We spent time with our little nephews over the break who live in town. They are Harry Potter fans, as are we, so we had a movie party with lots of movie-themed goodies. Mostly the menu consisted of sweets, but I talked them into eating dinner
I remember talking with a silver-haired lady a few years back about gardening. She said she has created eleven gardens in her life, and I remember thinking that sounded like a lot. Yet here I am, living in a rental house this year, again building another garden. How many is this for me now? There was my childhood garden and about six or seven rentals
