Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
The New York Times had an excellent article a week ago Sunday (7/8) that I have to share called “Buying Into the Green Movement”. We all know the good ol’ recycling phrase “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, but rarely does modern America adopt that first part of the phrase into daily habit. Most of us are aware that going Green is becoming just as much of a
The budding urban food forest has a recent success: the fig tree is alive! In case you missed the earlier post, we transplanted a 15+ foot fig tree into our backyard in early June. Not a great time to transplant a fruit tree, and the fig was none too pleased with us. However, we kept at it by burying a thick layer of mulch on
As a celebration of our Independence Day, let’s exercise our freedom of speech with a little election! To give you some background, almost a year ago we moved into this very unloved and neglected 1927 bungalow. As soon as we moved in, we spent many weekends and evenings working on the interior: painting those drab white walls, peeling off crumbling plaster, fixing plumbing problems, installing
I recently had a reader share with me some of the important benefits of incorporating mulch into permaculture gardens, to which I readily agreed. Then I realized, although I have been doing so in my garden, it’s something I haven’t really talked a lot about here. With Portland’s summer finally on it’s way, and reading the news about the longest drought in 100+ years in
As you may know, I was lucky enough to travel through South Korea for a couple weeks in June. I took some lovely pictures that are either garden-related or livestock-related and I thought I would share. I am trying to keep the descriptions breif since there are lots of pictures! Click on the actual photo for a larger picture. This is a lovely ceramics idea
I had a wonderful trip to South Korea for two weeks and I am looking forward to sharing some interesting gardening-related photos soon. I got in late Saturday night and woke up bright and early to squawking chickens at around 7:00am. Not exactly the ideal situation for a jet-lagged traveler returning home. Upon bursting into the yard to throw scratch at them in an attempt
I am currently in Seoul, South Korea, visiting my little brother. So no new posts for the next two weeks! If you have some great travel trips for South Korea, let me know! We are keeping things laid back and flexible, but have some fun excursions planned.
It all started at the Horse Brass… Jay and I were sitting around a table of friends the other night when his buddy, Blair, offered up his fig tree to us. He was even willing to throw in some bamboo he had thinned out recently as well. The fig tree was great, but he had other plans for that part of the yard and there
I have high hopes my friend, high hopes, for my garden. You would think I would exchange those high hopes for guarded enthusiasm instead… This is, after all, my first permanent garden, being a new home-owner and all. But no. High hopes. My husband Jay bought me a great book I hope to put to good use this Fall. I thought it would be a
My sister, Anne, moved into her new house recently and decided it was finally time to get her own backyard chicken flock. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I decided to go with her to pick out the chicks at a local feed store. Who could turn down a trip to see such adorable fuzzy animals? I watched her pick her different breeds
