DIG IN
The latest articles from Chelsea Green and our authors: offering tips and techniques about how you can bring our books to life in your kitchen, backyard, or community.
Permaculture Q&A: Perennial Plants for Temperate Climates
Our award winning author Eric Toensmeier (Perennial Vegetables, Paradise Lot), and two authors from our UK publishing partner Permanent Publications, Anni Kelsey (Edible Perennial Gardening) and Stephen Barstow (Around the World in 80 Plants), unanimously agree that perennial plants are perfect for cold weather climates. Perennials require less maintenance than typical annual crops and are…
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Solar Cooker & Dehydrator: How to Design Your Own
In today’s world, nearly everything we use, from phones and computers to cars and kitchen appliances, requires energy derived from fossil fuels. Wouldn’t it be nice to offset some of that energy use by harnessing the renewable power of the sun? Josh Trought, founder of D Acres—an educational center in New Hampshire that researches, applies,…
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A Mini-Festo for Earth Day – Rebuild the Foodshed
For the days leading up to Earth Day in years past, author Philip Ackerman-Leist runs a Twitter MiniFesto campaign – each day sending out a new tweet designed to spark conversation and pass along some lessons he learned whilst working on his book, Rebuilding the Foodshed. You might also know Philip as the author of…
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Winter Reads: 10 Books to Curl Up With This Winter
William Wordsworth was right when he said, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” Nevertheless, the cold, dark days of winter can still get the best of even Nature’s most tenderhearted admirer. What’s one to do? We here at Chelsea Green have concocted the perfect cabin fever remedy with our suggested winter reading…
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Replacing Windows? Understand Your New Glass Options
Having been in my passive solar home for 35 years, my original Alcoa windows were showing their age. The time had come to upgrade. My current experience of selecting which window and glass type to purchase turned out to be more formidable than I anticipated even as a professional in solar home design. There now…
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Make Your Own Fruit Wine
Have an excess harvest of a favorite fruit that you don’t know what to do with? Look no further—making your own fruit wine is easy, safe, and it’s as delicious as homemade pie or jam without the expiration date! All you need is an abundance of the fruit of your choosing, orange juice, wine yeast,…
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A Trip on A Unicycle: One Man, One Wheel, and the Open Road
Mark Schimmoeller’s Slowspoke: A Unicyclist’s Guide to America is about more than a cross-country trip on a unicycle; it’s a meditation on a way of life that Americans find increasingly rare: one that practices a playful, recalcitrant slowness. Award-winning author Janisse Ray (The Seed Underground) identifies with this pace. “Schimmoeller’s narrative—of his slow and deliberate journey…
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Stop Inviting Bears to Dinner
As conflicts between humans and black bears continue, it seems the message “Don’t feed the bears” bears repeating. Just this month, a man in Montgomery, VT was charged by the Fish & Wildlife Department for allegedly feeding bears. It was the first time that a person has been charged under a new law in Vermont that…
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Grilled Asparagus & Scallions
Switch up your side dishes this grilling season! Next time you fire up your grill, whip up a wonderfully fresh (and easy-to-make) plate of grilled asparagus and scallions. The following excerpt is from The Permaculture Kitchen by Carl Legge. It has been adapted for the web. RECIPE: Grilled Asparagus and Scallions This dish is wonderfully fresh, takes…
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RECIPE: Back to Basics Tomato Sauce
Knowing how to make a few simple and basic recipes is key to staying flexible in the kitchen. You can easily prepare tasty meals with just the seasonal ingredients you have on hand. This hearty tomato sauce recipe (excerpted below) is perfect for pizza, pastas, soup stocks, and more, whether you use tomatoes from the…
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RECIPE: Maple Mushroom Martini
Permaculture designer and author Michael Judd gets really excited about mushrooms. So when he found this recipe for a mushroom infused cocktail, he was barely able to contain himself. It may sound strange, but Judd swears this sweet mushroomy cocktail is magically delicious. The following is an excerpt from Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist by…
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Growing Your Own Herbs in 6 Easy Steps
Author Didi Emmons understands it’s intimidating to work with unfamiliar herbs. In her book, Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking From Eva’s Farm, she takes the simple approach that herbs, like any other plant, need good soil, water, sun, and air to thrive. Just vary the amounts of these four life-giving resources for each…
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How To Make An Herb Spiral: The Ultimate Raised Bed
The herb spiral: A beautiful year-round focal point for your garden that is easy and fun to build and saves both space and water. In Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist, author Michael Judd walks readers through step-by-step instructions on how to create this edibles-producing superstar. In addition to herb spirals, Edible Landscaping covers food forests, raised-bed gardens, earthen…
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RECIPE: The Simplest Pot Roast Ever
Beat winter’s chill with this warm and hearty pot roast recipe from Shannon Hayes’ book Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meats, Pinching Pennies, and Living Deliciously. The simple secret to this recipe is a good sear, followed by time in the slow cooker with very little liquid, resulting in…
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Got Pie?
Thanksgiving is just days away and your pie-loving friends here at Chelsea Green thought we’d share with you one of our favorite fruit pie recipes. The following apple pie recipe was adapted from Michael Phillips’ book The Apple Grower by the foodies over at The Washington Post and is named for Michael’s farm in northern…
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Building A Solar Oven: A Weekend DIY Project
Want to cook your food for free? By building a simple and affordable solar oven, you can use the power of the sun to slow-cook beans and stews and more. This step-by-step guide, illustrated by Rebekah Hren, will show you how to build the oven plus some tips on how to use it. Happy solar…
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Make Your Own Shoes: When Technology Fails
Matthew Stein’s book, When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency, offers this quick guide to making your own shoes. The book is packed with useful tips for saving money, living a sustainable lifestyle, and surviving in a savage, Road Warrior-like dystopia. We hope that will never happen, but if…
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Recipe: Squash Ravioli
The following is an excerpt from In Late Winter We Ate Pears: A Year of Hunger and Love by Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber. It has been adapted for the Web. Tortelli di Zucca Squash Ravioli Around the elegant northern city of Mantova these ravioli are called Tortelli alla Mantovana, “in the style of Mantova.”…
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Making Yogurt or Kefir Cheese: A Simple How-To
Making your own yogurt is an easy, healthy, and affordable way to experiment with fermentation, make milk last longer, and replace an industrial food product filled with mysterious chemical ingredients with one you know all about. Yogurt itself is a wonderful, versatile food, but you can also turn it into a spread or dip by…
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Make Your Own Root Beer: Celebrate the Wort Moon!
Much of what we know about the moon consists of when it’s waning, when it’s waxing, and that a full moon makes people do strange things. And while it’s common knowledge (and not just on cheesy astrology websites) we have a connection to the moon, it’s hard to know exactly what it is, without sounding…
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Traditional Italian Sponge Cake Soaked in Liqueur
Is your happy hour missing something? You’re sitting there, enjoying a glass of wine, a pint of beer, or a snifter of scotch — depending upon your tastes. The cares of the week are melting away as you slip under the spell of alcohol, one of the human race’s most ancient and most reliable methods…
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Blood Moon Recipe from Full Moon Feast: Swedish Meatballs
The following recipe was adapted for the Web from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice. In midautumn, when the air is growing colder and the nights longer, comes the Blood Moon. Also called the Hunter’s Moon by indigenous peoples in the eastern woodlands, it was a time when northern…
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Fermented Foods: Health Benefits & Cultural Rehabilitation
When we talk about “culture,” we’re talking about everything humans have ever created to make their lives a little nicer, from painting, to music and literature, and including food traditions. We also use the word “culture” to describe foods that are alive with beneficial bacteria. It’s no coincidence. Humans have been working together with health-giving…
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A New Kind of Pickles! Hurray, Hurrah!
Your pregnant girlfriend loves them. Your mother loves them. Your friends and your house guests and your children love them. They store well, they last long, and they’re perfect in potato salad. Pickles–the magical fermented sour (or sweet) treat. But have you ever made a pickle a la Sandor Katz? Because, ehem, he’s sort of…
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Old Nalgene Bottles: 5 Ways to Reuse Them
The water bottle that (kind of) defined a generation…is really a killer. Last year, toxic plastic struck close to home. In April 2008, the FDA deemed Nalgene water bottles—those awesome, never-break, never-leak containers you had come to depend on—as unsafe for use, due to dangerous levels of toxicity in the plastic. Durability, in other words,…
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