How to Find Edible Morel Mushrooms (With Recipes)

I promised! Here’s the morel hunting post. If you don’t want to hunt for your morels you can still use the recipes by buying fresh morels here, buying dried morels here, or by checking the dried mushroom section at your local grocery store. If you’re really lucky you might find them at your farmer’s market. If you just want to…

How to do Kudzu Companion Planting (Sort of…)

I’m here to help those of you who want early blooms to tide you over while your massive patch of kudzu is dormant. Plant partnering, if you haven’t tried it, is a pretty version of companion planting. The premise is growing complimentary plants together — either due to color schemes, textural interest, or seasonal successions. Now that I’ve drifted away…

How to Teach Beginner Organic Gardening in 15 Minutes

If you had 15 – 30 minutes to teach people how to start an organic garden, what would you do? Last Wednesday I did this crash course for our local Green Drinks International chapter. I gave out a one page, fridge-magnet-ready handout to go with it — which I included below. Here’s the handout. I was able to expand on…

How to Tell a Carolina Mantis Eggcase from a Chinese Mantis Eggcase (What’s an Ootheca?)

The Bunched Arrowhead Heritage Preserve is one of my favorite late-day stops when I need to get a nature fix. It’s about 20 minutes from my house and offers a range of habitats to explore — including forest, rare wetland seepage areas, and maintained meadows. Meadow habitats have become so scarce in the Carolinas that DNR uses mowing and controlled…

How to Start a Raised Bed Garden Without Buying Anything (Photo Essay)

Woops! It’s spring… this week got busy! I went to a great SCUMS meeting, the Organic Growers School, and created a huge new garden with the help of three friends. We’re still planning to amend the beds with compost but technically we could just plant in it as is. I did process photos to show you how to make raised…

How to Use Fennel (or Dill) to Keep Caterpillars Off Your Vegetable Plants

I don’t do a lot of companion planting. I’m not saying it doesn’t work (and I’d love to hear your success stories) but other than being impressed by mycorrhizal fungiĀ and permaculture plant guildsĀ I haven’t felt the need to find my plants a buddy. Oh! EXCEPT for growing fennel next to plants plagued by caterpillars. Flowering fennel is like a beacon…

How to Save Paper, Ink, and Money with Printfriendly

Did you know you can power your home for 10 months with the same amount of energy it takes to produce 1 ton of office paper? Or that every year 350 million ink cartridges are sent to the landfill? I’ve been seeing Printfriendly.com show up repeatedly in the referrer section of my blog stats. Presumably because people are going there…

How to Use Mushrooms to Get Rid of Atrazine (and Spare Male frogs from “Castration”)

I thought I would post about morels next but good things come to those who wait. In the meantime we have a bad thing with (at least one) good solution. Ever heard of Atrazine? It’s in the news right now for altering the reproductive systems of frogs: CNN, Reuters, Fox, BBC It’s now infamous and controversial. Atrazine has a reputation…

How to Get Old Taunton Kitchen Gardener Magazine Articles

You may not be awash in excitement from the title of this post, but you should be. This magazine, the best garden magazine I ever read, has long been out of print. I purchased my first copies at a Master Gardener Symposium exchange for $0.25 a piece. I could scarcely wait to go online to buy a subscription and was…

How to (Easily) Grow Celery at Home (w/Recipes)

It’s not just tasty and easy — it’s pretty! For those of you who like to dress up your flower beds with some well-placed ornamental edibles (or who want show-stopping potagers) this is an oft-overlooked plant you can’t be without. For those of you who like to eat — it’s celery! Of course you should grow it. I don’t know…