There Will Be Kraut–Lecture on Fermentation at the Historic Greystone Mansion

...ro-biotic” supplements. Erik Knutzen, co-author of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, will give an overview of the world’s fermented foods and discuss how you can make your own. He’ll cover everything from sauerkraut to pickles to sourdough bread to the great kombucha controversy to the health benefits of fermented foods. He may even discuss arctic explorer Knud Rasmussen’s untimely death from eating ferm...

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Straw Bale Gardens

Tasha Via’s straw bale garden. Michael Tortorello (who profiled us when Making It came out) is one of my favorite writers covering the home ec/gardening subjects we discuss on this blog. He had an article last week in the New York Times, “Grasping at Straw” on straw bale gardening. We’ve very tempted to give the practice a try in our backyard. Why? We have lead and zinc contaminated soil so growing veggies in the ground is questionable. We live o...

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Saturday Linkages: Goats, Chainsaws and a Big Blue Rooster

...ou-can.html?utm_source=feedly … Crafty Crafting with cat hair: no, I’m not making this up The Redventure Romp Cocktail by Amy Stewart http://gardenrant.com/2013/07/the-redventure-romp-cocktail.html?utm_source=feedly … Vinyl Record Lamps http://www.dudecraft.com/2013/07/vinyl-record-lamps.html … Combine a Mason Jar and Juice Carton into a Resealable Dispenser http://lifehacker.com/combine-a-mason-jar-and-juice-carton-into-a-resealable-845153794 … A...

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Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

The directions for seed saving in our last book, Making It, almost got cut. Perhaps we should have just changed those directions to “Why it’s OK to buy seeds.” The fact is that it’s not easy to save the seeds of many vegetables thanks to the hard work of our bee friends. That being said, Shannon Carmody of Seed Saver’s Exchange gave a lecture at this year’s Heirloom Exposition with some tips for ambitious gardeners who want to take up seed saving...

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Saturday Linkages:

The Japanese art of Furoshiki–a way of making packages with a reusable cloth. Via No Tech Magazine. Zero waste shopping in Japan with Furoshiki: http://www.notechmagazine.com/2014/04/furoshiki-zero-waste-shopping-in-japan.html … A solar powered grain grinder: http://www.notechmagazine.com/2014/04/solar-powered-grain-mill.html … Bee Friendly Gardening In The Pacific Northwest http://www.nwedible.com/2014/04/bee-friendly-gardening.html … Nesting fo...

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