Category Archives: composting

Soil Food Feeds Plants

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Bunnies and chickens together make excellent soil food Making Garden Gold At Home Over the past couple of years, the pandemic kept many people closer to home than usual, and many of them found gardening to be a comfort in … Continue reading

Posted in Care & Feeding, Climate Change, composting, Health & Wellbeing, pests and pesticides, Plant Diversity, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Weed Control | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Birds Love Seeds, Bunnies Love Greens

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Illustration by Garth Williams (from Margaret Wise Brown’s book, Mister Dog) Giving Seed Saving New Meaning Seeds are such little miracles, bundles of protein and promise. Seeds can nurture living beings and create new plants. Seeds can also invite flocks … Continue reading

Posted in Birds In The Garden, Butterfly Gardens, Care & Feeding, composting, Early Crops, Hardy Herbs, Health & Wellbeing, pests and pesticides, Pets & Pests In The Garden, Plant Partnerships, Planting & Transplanting, Pollination Gardens, Pollinators, Soil, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Making Compost From Crap

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                           Light in the darkness shows us the way forward Doing Our Part, High Or Humble This morning, a crowd of supporters Zoom-watched as Tarra Simmons was sworn in to serve as our district representative in the Washington State Legislature. … Continue reading

Posted in composting, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Social Justice, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | 10 Comments

Harvesting & Heading For Autumn

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If the tomatoes are ambling, nectarines and peaches, plums and blackberries are all racing from garden to table. Neighbors have gifted us with enough to make lots of jam and desserts, but I’m also making large supplies of fruit vinegars. Delicious in dressings or drizzled over sliced avocados or watermelon, tomatoes or lettuce, homemade fruit vinegars also make excellent shrubs, combinations of vinegars and fizzy water that can be further concocted into mixed drinks. Making them at home, you can avoid the cloying over-sweetness of commercial kinds, and it’s rewarding to combine fruits, or add spices or anything else that strikes your fancy. Around here, the top favorites include a single kind of fruit with the addition of a vanilla bean, cracked peppercorns, lemon peel, or even a cinnamon stick. Here’s the basic recipe and a few favorite variations to play with, but I encourage you to start with cider vinegar, which tastes and carries flavors far better than white vinegar (too harsh) or rice vinegar (too mild). Continue reading

Posted in Annual Color, Care & Feeding, Climate Change, composting, fall/winter crops, Gardening With Children, Health & Wellbeing, Planting & Transplanting, Pollinators, Recipes, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening, Vegan Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments