July Learnings from the Garden

So we are about half way through the gardening year. Early and Mid spring crops like Spinach, peas and lettuce are gone, early summer crops like potatoes, beets, and carrots (as well as Hoop House peppers!) are harvestable. Tomatoes are heavy on the vine but still green, corn is 4-5′ tall and [...]

Garden Update and Food Frugality

Right, so posting has taken a back seat to, er, LIFE lately but I have a bit of time to catch up some.
Hybrids:
When I bought my Inisght 28 months ago I paid $12,600 for it -its a 2001 and it had about 53k on it. Now, 30k miles later, when we are considering turning [...]

(Re)Building Topsoil

Emily recently asked for a detailed post on Soil Building -that is a fabulous idea, so here goes!
I live in a new Subdivison. Besides good insulation and resale values, I also got a denuded yard with no topsoil. I am no different than hundreds of thousands of households out there. Growing things [...]

Potatoes!

So I stopped draggin my feet and got around to ordering my seed potatoes today. And thank goodness! My beloved Purple Vikings are sold out virtually everywhere! What has been taking so long is that I wanted to source as local as possible, but our local seed potatoe provider was already oversold. [...]

Let the Planting Begin!

A week ago, I was covering a second shift for a peer, and availed myself of a rare afternoon at home to visit the Hoop House. Air temps were a balmy 9 degrees (F), and I used snow shoes to get to the greenhouse. However, it was a beautiful and [...]

Updates

It’s happening again, the distinct ying/yang effect of the amount of blogging waning as my amount of doing waxes.  Here are some quick updates to where some of the projects are at.
Market Garden 
BIG NEWS: I have permission to utilize as much of .5 acres as needed!  This is at the site about 4 miles from [...]

Edible Flowers: Eat Beautifully

I have gone gonzo over edible flowers this winter. It started last year when the stand of our favorite farm at the market was giving away pints of nasturtium blooms with any order over $20. Our daughter loves flowers, so I decided to bring them home for that evening’s salad to see if [...]

Eco-Victory Garden: The Sustainable Salad

I posted recently about an idea for providing low cost garden systems that came to me while blog surfing. There is so much buzz about Michael Pollan’s new book, and at the same time so many of the Garden Blog set have Spring Fever and are challenging each other to various great ways to [...]

Local Food: The Road to Damascus

Of late I am on a mission to reconnect (sub)urban Wisconsin to get back to their roots. Literally. I want more people growing more of their food. My Sub Acre Ag project is grand -designed to permit a family of 4 to meet most of their vegetable needs for most of a [...]

Hoop House Ramblings

I wake up early. During the week I start the day before 4am, so on the weekends even 5:30 seems like sleeping in. This morning at said time it was all of -9 degrees. Even by mid afternoon the temps hadn’t really crossed zero yet, this is one mean cold snap! [...]