Straw Bale Gardens

...drag a straw bale up the hill rather than bulk or bagged soil. Straw bale gardening is an old and tested practice. Straw bale gardening comes with the endorsement of horticulture professor and noted garden myth debunker Linda Chalker-Scott. The practice has been tested in dry climates like ours. After the bale has decomposed you get compost you can use elsewhere in the yard. I suspect that skunks will be less interested in digging in a bale (plea...

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Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Gardening Wisdom

...waters are continually flowing in.” Installing is the hard toil of garden making, placing is its pleasure. I think I’ve spent too much time in the installing and not enough time contemplating the placing. In so doing gardening has become more of a chore than a pleasure. Superior gardens are composed of Glooms and Solitudes and not of plants and trees. I take this to mean that a garden should express moods and ideas and not be just a collection of...

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Foodcrafting 101

...Guinness Stout, liqueurs, orange flower water, coffee or fresh citrus zest. You’ll have an entire flavor bar™ of spices, sweeteners and herbs to pick from as you create your own signature mustard blend. INSTRUCTORS INCLUDE: Erik Knutzen: Co-author of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World and a L.A. County Master Food Preserver Joseph Shuldiner: Institute Director, and author: Pure Vegan: 70 Recipes for Beauti...

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How to Make Stock

...in To cook pasta and couscous To make risotto To make polenta For braising vegetables or meat For sauteing vegetables Straight, as a broth Preparing for stock: Stock is traditionally made with scraps. So you may want to start a scrap bin for stock in your fridge or freezer. Save those parsley stems, that half onion, those carrot stubs and celery tops! Similarly, meat stocks are made with scraps and bones. Chicken stock can be made with a whole chi...

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