Sweet As Honey
Harvesting honey is – I hope – going to become one of our spring rituals. We just harvested out first honey: four medium frames, two people working two hours give 8 pints of honey (4 liters) or 12 pounds. We are about to start our …
In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
locavore log
Smoking Bacon
Bacon’s my friend (especially the kind that comes from a pastured pig). A few weeks ago I read Brett Laidlaw’s post on Trout Caviar about smoking bacon. He wrote it just about 2 years ago, but I only recently read it. I knew we had …
The Taste Of Green
I simply love this time of the year when the days are clear, the nights are cool, the maples are blooming, the buds are swelling on the trees, and so many green things – good to eat too – are poking out of the ground, …
On Spinach
A month ago, we were under 2 feet of snow with night temperatures in the single digits. This week we garden in short-sleeve shirts and harvest mache, baby lettuce, just-emerging sorrel, baby arugula, escarole and… spinach – lots and lots of spinach. Finally! The spinach …
Planning for Tomatoes
We may have two feet of snow on the ground, but the early tomato seedlings have germinated. I do like to pick my first tomatoes in June, so I plant a few seedling in late January. They germinate in early February, and I keep up-potting …
On the Value of a Hoophouse
Cost: $100 (mostly recycled materials).Value? priceless. After a hard day of trampling paths up & down the hill or shoveling the 22″ of snow that have graced us since Friday (or plowing snow for Keith, including the road and the driveway of several neighbors), we …
Oxtail Soup
A dish of oxtail soup is a thing to share with those you love. Or not. (depends how much you love them) What’s not to like about oxtail? It’s traditional farm fare, a simple country dish with robust complex favors – many parts of the …
On Sauerkraut and Other Fermented Food
I had never eaten homemade sauerkraut until I started to make it last year. I can’t say that I really like the store-bought canned stuff – but I really like a Reuben sandwich, and you do need sauerkraut for that. In my quest for more …
Snow, What Snow?
2 feet of snow last week-end, temperatures in the lower teens (F/ about -12 C). I have not been in the hoophouse for about a week, and frankly I was not sure how it was going to be in there. Would I have mush? It …