How to Attend Hands-On Classes in Gardens, Kitchens, Forests, and Even a Late 1800’s Cabin

It’s here. The garden classes are in gardens, the cooking classes are in kitchens, the nature study is in forests, the raspberries taste like raspberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries! I worked for weeks on the lesson plans for these hands-on classes, workshops, and tours and am so excited to finally roll them out. Click here for my entire…

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How to Feel Inspired by an Urban Farm

Our city’s Urban Farm Tour is over for this year and by all accounts was a great success — GOFO sold out of tickets early in the day and had to scramble to print even more of them! I hope everyone who toured came away feeling inspired, I was so impressed by all the enthusiastic visitors we met at our…

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How to Find Real Things #1

I’m not a big fan of shopping or owning huge quantities of stuff. When I do put on my modern hunter/gatherer hat, I think of my purchase as a vote. Do I spend my voting dollar on artisan-made or an overseas sweatshop? Am I going to vote for something that will last generations or for built-in-obsolesce? Will I purchase biodegradable…

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How to Grow and Use Achocha/Caigua (a Problem-Free Cucumber Substitute), with Recipes

Organic gardening often produces healthier, more easily grown vegetables and fruits than the same crops grown with “conventional” methods. There are, however, a few crops that have a pouty reputation for organic growers. The cucurbit family claims most of these weak-kneed plants. I count on summer squash and cucumbers to be riddled with squash vine borer, cucumber worms, and fungal…

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How to Select Hot Pepper Varieties (& Use the Ones You Grow)

We may have overdone it this year with the hot peppers. We don’t feel the least bit repentant, though. Spicing up a meal is quick when using small peppers, and they look great in vinegar-based hot sauces or simply as fiery pickles. I try to find peppers that produce a large spectrum of beautifully colored fruits on a single plant….

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How to Finish the Fall Garden

After the warm months we gardeners are either squeezing as much remaining produce as possible from our plants before the threat of frost, or we’re incredibly grateful for an excuse to stop harvesting… finally! Last weekend we decided the weather prediction was chilly enough to go ahead and strip the garden bare. We ended up with a backseat and trunk…

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How to Grow and Use Tea Hibiscus/Florida Cranberry

I get excited about foods I’ve never grown before and for a few years now I’ve tried my hand at growing Hibiscus sabdariffa, which you may be familiar with as the “zinger” in Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger tea. H. sabdariffa is also known as tea hibiscus, red tea, Florida cranberry, roselle, and sorrel (unrelated to the leafy French sorrel). It…

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How to Preserve the Peach Harvest

Whether you buy them at a farm stand or grow them yourself, preserving peaches for the winter months is a satisfying endeavor. Freezing: Wash, pit, and peel ripe peaches. A boiling water dip can be used if the peaches do not peel easily on their own. To prevent discoloration, coat the peaches in a solution of 1/4 tsp crystalline ascorbic…

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