Around 3 weeks ago we got hit with the first real heat of the year. I thought I was ready for this. You have to be ready for it if you keep Angora rabbits, because their fur is SEVEN times warmer than wool and they overheat very easily. It’s not hard to kill an Angora-just [...]
I’d been looking forward to donating surplus food as well as learning food storage. So I started 2 weeks ago with my over-planting of radishes that were JUST at peak: Easter Egg radishes, which are white, pink and purple, and regular cherry and icicle radishes. Fresh and mild and crunchy…they’ll go to the Jeffco Action [...]
Robbie interviews Denver author Sundari Kraft about her new book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Urban Homesteading”. See the feature article, along with a short video interview HERE at Denver Green Streets.
Here we go. Herbs on the deck: lemon verbena, lovage and lemon balm struggling to make a comeback…and my pride and joy, an actual healthy marigold from seed. I would have had a dozen if I hadn’t set all but one of them out in a cold frame way too early. Marigolds hate the cold. [...]
Many things strike me as metaphorical. The idea of Zombie Apocalypse, even exploited by the Center For Disease Control, is, I believe, a metaphor for people who refuse to look at the economic situation we are currently in. They also refuse to consider the ramifications of it. State governments go broke, the Federal government can’t [...]
Bindweed must die. But bindweed is a great survivor. It’s very aggressive and invasive and winds around plants, choking them to death. It’s a garden menace. So I must apply my best strategies, knowing what I know. Bindweed comes up from a mother plant, the roots of which can be as deep as 30 feet [...]
My potatoes might be just fine. Mom sent me potato bags. They’re the size of 5-gallon buckets, made of some kind of newfangled polymer. You fill them with dirt and stick your potato starts in. Due to our location in a desiccating wind tunnel I mulch compulsively, which might seem counter-productive because I have to [...]
In our present culture the idea of doing something smaller, so as to do it better, is an alien idea. Everybody wants to “go bigger”. Bigger, or outsized from the scale of nature, is not better. Growing acres of nothing but corn or soybeans is not better. It’s just bigger. You have lots more food [...]
Nature is sometimes gentle, sometimes hard, and wields both forces in infinite wisdom. Students and stewards of Nature seek to emulate Her, but we have limited wisdom. We make mistakes. Sometimes this hurts. This morning wasn’t hard. Just a reminder how hard it can be. Hardening off seedlings is a process of gradually acclimating them [...]
Despite all my fancy and expensive classes, I still have no idea how to compost animal poo. It’s not easy information to dig up. But it is that time of year to clean out the chicken run. THAT I know how to dig up. I’m taking a wild guess and reducing my risk by containing [...]