I’m deadlining madly for the next two weeks. And when not making my way through a pile of assignments, I’ll be making my way to Montana and back. It’s a whirlwind trip; just a few days. But the cause is excellent. A rancher — and blog reader — and his wife (who he says is a much nicer person than he is) are giving me a side of organically raised grass-fed Highland beef and are paying part of the cost of the freezer to house it. All I have to do is cover the butcher’s fees. My friend L., whose…
15 CommentsCategory: Gardening heaven forbid
Everything is illegal these days. You know it. You’re lucky if you get through your first cup of coffee without committing a federal felony or three. Your state legislature churns out new offenses targeting you for improper swimming gear or an unlicensed lemonade stand. As we saw yesterday, mere countycrats may already be building a SWAT team to raid your unpermitted garden shed. That sucks, of course. But the silver lining is that when everything is a crime, everybody is an outlaw — and inevitably a gratifying minority of new-minted enemies of the state embrace their status, don their broad-brimmed…
10 CommentsDarned clever strawberry beds: A friend took me into the hills where people she knows made these neat raised strawberry beds. Around here, if you plant strawberries, what the slugs don’t eat the birds will. So these folks found (or as my friend put it, “found”) a culvert, sliced it lengthwise and built it into raised beds. The beds are lower on one end for drainage, and the contraptions on top are covered with hardware cloth and rigged so that they can be raised at the plants grow. Since every one of my hoity-toity certified-organic strawberry plants disappeared without a…
19 CommentsBack from the Mother Earth News Fair. It was a huge, fantastic event. If Mother throws one of these anywhere near you, you might consider attending even if you have to travel quite a way. I was also fortunate enough to connect with several delightful “friends I’ve never met” and to enjoy my time with Dave and Ilene; this is the first time I’ve met them despite all my years of writing for BHM, and they are great people. I’ll have tales (and tails!) from the fair later this week (and will also continue blogging “Middle-class shrugging”). But for your…
7 CommentsThat gadget you see below is a Soil Cube Tool. It was (very nicely) made by the good folks at Deeply Rooted Organics and (very nicely) sent to me as … well, I think of it as a personal challenge. Because this isn’t really a post about gardening. The tool is for forming — guess what? — cubes of soil in which to start seeds. A recipe for the soil mix and complete instructions come with the gadget. Upon receiving it, I went to the local farmers’ market, bought four packets from the Seed Lady (three types of salad greens,…
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