My article on storage crops was published today in Organic Lifestyle Magazine: Foods You Can Grow and Store All Winter - The Lowdown on Storage Crops ...
Support Local Farms
The Melon Ball
When a local farm advertises a Melon Ball, with watermelon tasting and a melon eating contest, you take them up on that. Organic Redneck Growers is a wonderful organic farm down the road that we have been visiting for blueberry picking since my kids were little. We seemed to keep missing all their fun farm events over the last couple years, but one of our friends just moved out there this summer ...
Fresh, Healthy, Local, and Sustainable Fruit Year-Round
My latest article on harvesting and preserving fruit is published in Organic Lifestyle Magazine today: Fresh, Healthy, Local, and Sustainable Fruit Year-Round Read on! ...
Just Peachy
Canning season is here, and things are just peachy in the farmhouse kitchen. Canning peaches feels a lot like capturing summer in a jar. There's nothing like opening a cheerful looking jar of peaches on a cold winter morning to enjoy with breakfast. They're also good to take along on off-season camping trips as a special treat. We decided to pick up our peaches on the way home from a family ...
The Things We Find in the Pumpkin Patch
Our pumpkin crop was hit and miss this year, leaving us in need of a couple of good jack-o-lanterns. I remembered our CSA had offered that members could come out and pick a pumpkin from the patch if they missed the farm celebration, so one day after school last week, the kids and I headed out to finally visit the farm that feeds us. Now, you might be asking yourselves why we still get a CSA share ...
A Recipe for Strawberry Jam and Life
A Mountain Hearth Recipe for Strawberry Jam and Life Ingredients: A local Farm Friends and People You Love 4 cups fresh picked strawberries 3/4 to 2 cups sugar 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice 3/4 cup water 3 tsp Pomona's Pectin 4+ tsp Pomona's calcium water (comes with pectin) Step 1: Do It Yourself! Strawberry jam, and most things in life are sweeter when you ...
Farmers Know the Dirt!
Harvest time is rolling in, and I am enjoying the experience of living right in the middle of the activity on this 20 acre farm. Cheerful folks come and go from the orchards picking fruit, boxes of organic produce keep accumulating and moving around, piles of garlic husk mound up by chairs in the shade, and the mechanical serenade of the tractor engine drifts around in the background. It ...
Those Summertime Blues
It was just a blueberry pickin' kind of day, so we headed up the McKenzie River to one of our favorite farms, the McKenzie River Organic Farm. We have been picking here since my kids were little, and every year we look forward to visiting the enchanted looking cobb farmstand, petting the cows and pigs, saying hello to the chickens, picking giant juicy berries from bushes that would be more ...
Draft Horse Field Trip
The third grade school year is drawing to a close for my children at our local Waldorf school, and they have been busy measuring, digging, and always learning. For those of you unfamiliar with the Waldorf education model, the third grade curriculum focuses on living on the earth, covering such things as shelter, building, farming, cooking, and working with fibers. Reading this, you probably ...
Farm Field Trip
Pumpkin patch field trips are some of the best memories I have from elementary school. I loved going out to farms on the Dungeness River delta and running with my classmates into fields full of bright orange pumpkins in the crisp autumn air, looking for just the right one. Now, I enjoy going along with my children on their class pumpkin patch field trips. This year, our class at the Waldorf ...