I can’t resist local fruit when I visit the few remaining orchards in my area this time of year. The incomparable perfume of the fuzzy peaches, the matte veil on the early yellow plums, the blushing nectarines and the dripping tender melons all get me thinking of the kitchen. There are just so many of […]
No summer meal in the South is complete without okra, but no matter where you live, your garden should boast this beautiful vegetable.
The chicks are almost 6 weeks old. They don’t know much more than how to eat, drink, forage and fly, and they approach mere acquaintances with too much familiarity. They lack social graces and respect for their elders, which the older hens won’t hesitate to teach. The chicks are still not allowed to free-range like […]
When I first starting cooking for myself, I turned to eggs cooked in tomato sauce for a warming, nourishing last-minute dinner. With a little sautéed garlic and a chopped onion (if I had one) in the pan, the gooey eggs broken into the sauce satisfied my hunger, and I’d wipe every last traces with a […]
In the small urban garden, you may find these stinkbug cousins annoyingly noshing on your tomatoes.
I’m a person who likes to prepare. Research, studying, and compiling information is a joy, and when I took up raising chickens, it was the preparation that convinced me I was ready for the hobby. But no matter how much I prepare, there’s always something I don’t know until I jump in. Usually, it’s something […]
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This year’s potato harvest from my front-yard urban garden brought back childhood memories of digging up the tubers from a neighbor’s kitchen garden.
Spending time with your flock, observing behaviors, and inspecting each chicken for injury and illness are important chores to add to the daily or weekly to-do list. You know your flock and its individual personalities best, which makes spotting problems easy. I keep a close eye on my Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Pauline. She’s my heaviest chicken, […]
City gardeners have problems no farmer in the country faces. Can you relate?
Mmmmm … berries. I love to pick them myself, which I often can at my CSA farm. My mind buzz turns off, replaced by bee buzz; the bees are way too busy to bother me. In the quiet berry patch, the focused search and careful reach for ripe berries is contemplative and soothing. Eat one […]
Last week, when I’d take the chicks outside to their makeshift playpen—a 4-by-8-foot rabbit guard fence we built to keep the hens out of a raised garden bed—the chicks were afraid of the big world, snuggling up together in a corner or trying to escape. Yesterday, though, I saw a sudden change in their behavior. […]
