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.
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…
Read MoreWaste, An Excerpt from The Carbon-Free Home.
Ever wonder why we humans insist on wasting our human waste? Well, no. Probably not. But I have. And so have Stephen and Rebekah Hren, authors of our new release The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit. The following excerpted chapter makes clear that—given the right technologies—we can put our…
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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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Watering Your Plants: How Important Is It?
There’s an old saying: water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. But now with climate change, make that: water, water rapidly disappearing, and more and more gardens popping up that need watering. A terrible rhyme, but a paradox for sure; with the increase of local and small family food production, comes a bigger…
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The Permaculture Way—Tending Your Personal Garden
An integral aspect of Permaculture—”an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies”—is the realization that all things are connected. Finding peace in the harmonious systems of your garden is a good entry point for plugging into the interconnectedness of all systems on Earth. The…
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A1 Cow’s Milk May Account for a Range of Serious Illnesses
The following is an excerpt from Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health, and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk by Keith Woodford. It has been adapted for the Web. What North Americans should be concerned about is that North American milk is very high in A1 beta-casein, and no one is doing anything about…
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Build Your Own Cold Frame, Part 3: Get a Jump on the Planting Season
For a cold frame to really work, the light has to be just right. It creates the perfect climate to grow your food when the temperatures make it seem impossible. It can be adjusted to allow for ventilation or more closed to prevent snow or large amounts of water from entering and damaging the plants.…
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Building for the Future: Fire-Resistant Green Building
The following is an excerpt from When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency by Matthew Stein. It has been adapted for the Web. In October 1993, when a vicious wildfire broke out in Laguna Beach, a southern California beach town, firefighter John Henderson was called down from his home…
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Grow Berries in Your Low-Light Urban Space
The following is an excerpt from Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R. J. Ruppenthal. It has been adapted for the Web. A central problem for many of us who garden in the city is a lack of light. This is covered extensively in the vegetable chapters. I mention it again here only to note…
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Raise Bees in Your Apartment: Urban Apiculture
Not everyone is a fan of bees, but when you get down to their level, you start to appreciate all that they do for us; pollinating the flowers and giving us delicious honey. Beekeeping is a noble profession or hobby to take on as you are providing a habitat for your colony to thrive. But…
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Prepping for an Earthquake: How to Improve Your Home’s Earthquake Resistance
The following is an excerpt from When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency by Matthew Stein. It has been adapted for the Web. Ask anyone who has been through a major earthquake, such as the Loma Prieta or Northridge quakes, and they will tell you that a serious quake…
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Evaporative Cooling Box: A DIY Project
Learn how to make an evaporative cooling box from home this weekend with these helpful & simple tips! The following is an excerpt from The Carbon Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit by Stephen & Rebekah Hren. It has been adapted for the Web. How to Make An Evaporative Cooling…
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Replace Your Soap with Soapy Plants
Sick of chemical-filled soaps that leave your hands feeling dirtier than before you washed them? Then we’ve got the project for you! Do it yourself soap with soapy plants! It’s as simple as adding water. The following project is from When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein. It has been adapted for the web. There is…
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Ten Surprising Facts About the Energy We Use
The days of cheap oil energy have come to an end. What once was simple and cheap (i.e. driving to vacation) has become difficult and expensive. The skyrocketing cost (and limited supply) of energy has forced us to re-examine the energy we use in our daily lives. Below is a quick list of 10 facts…
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Good Food Corner: Spicy Fried Egg and Tomato
Add some punch to a bland winter afternoon. Dust off your frying pan and whip up some Spicy Fired Egg and Tomato for yourself or your family.
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Rare and Hard-to-Find Perennial Seed Sources
Eric Toesnmeier, author of Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles, knows the value of a good seed source. So, to encourage interesting selections for your food garden this summer, we thought we’d post this helpful seed source appendix from Perennial Vegetables. From the book: Perennial vegetables…
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