Welcome!

When you join our community, you gain the ability to engage in discussions, share your thoughts, and send private messages to fellow members.

SignUp Now!

Search results

  1. K

    3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach Recipe

    Doesn’t it annoy you when your clothes start to break down after a couple encounters with bleach. Well if that is the case, you may [...] The post 3 Ingredient Homemade Bleach Recipe first appeared on Homestead Lifestyle.
  2. K

    Mostarda di Frutta, and notes on artificial sweeteners in ketogenic diets

    While in Florence on my honeymoon many years ago I learned to love mostarda di Cremona, the sweet tangy mustardy fruit condiment. I bought a bulk kilo, hauled it home, and for many years enjoyed it with all kinds of things. Then I developed blood sugar problems and changed to a ketogenic diet...
  3. K

    Canna Lilies

    Every year I try a few new edibles, and I try to lean toward perennials. I have a lot of edible perennials in the spring but very few that produce in hot weather, so I’m especially interested in any heat-tolerant edible. This spring I read about canna lilies as a multi-purpose edible, with young...
  4. K

    Superfruit Sauce

    A couple of years ago I started my low-carb fruit project, aimed at growing maximum antioxidants with minimum carbohydrates. This summer my plantings started to bear. Here are a few observations: 1. A good Italian plum tree is abundant beyond rational imagination. In season the branches are...
  5. K

    Natural Chaos

    A garden bed with edible weeds in glorious (?) array For a brief period earlier this year I had a lovely young helper in the garden, and he was a sponge for any information about plants and animals and a joy to have around. At one point, as he talked about how much he wanted a “yard farm” of...
  6. K

    The Perennial Paddock: Goji Berries

    I planted Goji berries years ago when I was interested in eating the berries, and hadn’t yet discovered how invasive they were. I am told that they like slightly alkaline soil, and indeed mine revel in it and come up everywhere despite whatever obstacles I put in their way. But as far as I’m...
  7. K

    Food Independence Day

    Gardening is a pleasure and a labor of love, and it’s also part of a bigger picture of resilience. I think about resilience a lot these days, on every level from national and international to personal. Much of the time there is little or, arguably, nothing that I can do for those larger systems...
  8. K

    The Last Fruit of the Year

    Most of the trees in my yard are fruit trees, and many of them are coming into full maturity and bearing potential. I was looking forward to a succession of harvests this summer, when fate intervened in the form of one small, scrawny squirrel. She showed up under my birdfeeder last winter...
  9. K

    Fermentation III: Vinegar

    I first wrote about red wine vinegar in 2009, and while I have made and consumed it steadily since then, there didn’t seem to be much more to say about it. My husband gifted me with a marvelously cool 2 gallon oak barrel to keep it in, but the vinegar was the same. But then came The Noma Guide...
  10. K

    Living in Interesting Times: Radiant Moments

    To sum up the pandemic news: daily life is strange and it’s going to be strange for some time to come. If you don’t have a garden, it’s even weirder and more disturbing. But if you do have a garden, there are moments of such transcendent beauty that you realize with a fresh shock how lucky you...
  11. K

    Leaf Ales for All Seasons

    I’ve had more inquiries about this post than about any other, so I’m re-upping it with a few subsequent notes: 1. The effect of fermentation on flavors is unpredictable and often wonderful. I am not at all a fan of beets, for instance, but one or two beets gives the brew a beautiful rosé color...
  12. K

    Broccoli Heaven

    This year I made a real effort to have broccoli, my favorite vegetable, available in larger quantities than I could eat at once. Every year I hope to have some to freeze, and every year I gobble it all up as soon as it is ready. But this year I did succeed, by putting in 12 plants in late May...
  13. K

    Wild Mushroom Experiments

    No, not that kind of mushroom and not that kind of experiment. I have been reading a wonderful new book, chef Chad Hyatt’s The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen, and it has led to compulsive kitchen experimenting. Hyatt writes about porcini, morels, and the other “premium” mushrooms, but also about more...
  14. K

    Ditch Dinner, with notes on blue mustard

    My home area near the Rio Grande has an elaborate venous system of acequias, the irrigation ditches that move water out to farms and fields. Further south, they make local agriculture possible. Even now that my area is urbanized, the ditches are lifeblood. They maintain our water table, and the...
  15. K

    The Greens of Early Summer

    I love leafy greens and consider them one of the healthiest foods in the world, as long as they were raised in a clean fashion. If you are lucky enough to have a garden and an active permaculture property, you can nearly always eat some greens but the source of your greens changes throughout...
  16. K

    Peapod Feast

    One of my favorite vegetables in the world is the Oregon Giant snow pea. It makes large pods that don’t acquire their best flavor until the peas inside swell to nearly full-size, more like a snap pea. At that stage they’re the best thing in the garden, and everything else goes on the back burner...
  17. K

    Living in Interesting Times: Improvisational Stir-fries

    The current world travails started me thinking about thrift. The most financially difficult period of my life was when I lived in Manhattan on a beginning designer’s salary and paid over 3/4 of my salary in rent. It probably goes without saying that I had no health insurance or paid sick leave...
  18. K

    Early Spring: Collards

    My yard is full of perennial greens ready to harvest, but the first greens I harvest every year are last year’s collards. Kale may be a good winter green in snowier areas, but in my nearly snowless windy desert, kale has desiccated to death by mid-December. My winter stalwart is collards, and...
  19. K

    Greens: Early Spring Horta

    For gardeners, early spring is a time of great anticipation. This is the season when the growing season to come glows with perfection in your mind, completely removed from hard weather, pests, and general exhaustion. But it is also the time of the very first harvest, if you grow some perennial...
  20. K

    A Variation on Hortapita

    In my last post I wrote about horta made entirely from green alliums, the first greens of spring. Horta is very good all by itself, but it can also be fun to elaborate, and I have written before about hortapitas, the many types of greens pies that are filled with horta. They can be large or...

Online statistics

Members online
0
Guests online
6
Total visitors
6
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Trending content

Newest members

About Us

Welcome to our community! We aim to provide a friendly space where you can connect, share ideas, and enjoy engaging content. We value creativity, respect, and continuous improvement, and we’re glad to have you with us!

Back
Top