Chelsea Green Blog
Farming & Homesteading
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Goat Handling
If you have goats or are considering getting goats, at some point you’ll need to move them from one grazing area to another. Goat handling can be a tricky task, as they can scare easily and high levels of stress are not good for their health or productivity. Take some advice from author and goat whisperer…
Read More
How One Small Town Banned Pesticides: Freedom from Poison
The recent uncovering of The Poison Papers—a collection of documents revealing years of apparent collusion between companies producing pesticides and other chemicals and regulatory agencies such as the EPA—shows just how difficult it is to stop corporate, agricultural, and other powerful interests from spraying dangerous chemicals, even when human health and the environment are at…
Read More
Organic No-Till: Farming like the Earth Matters
If we could do one thing for the planet it would be to ditch the plough. When we turn over soil, the air and sun wreak havoc on the microbes, which is why we need chemicals to bring the fertility back. No-till creates thin furrows in the soil and drops seeds in. It’s difficult to…
Read More
Sustainable Food From Local Greenhouses
The Netherlands—a country two-thirds the size of West Virginia— is ranked second in agricultural export volume behind the United States. Their secret weapon? Greenhouses and hoophouses. These protected structures allow you to control the environment, resulting in maximum resource efficiency, higher yields, and ultimately higher profits. Drawing inspiration from Dutch agricultural practices, Andrew Mefferd has…
Read More
Care of the Soil
Caring for the soil is the farmer’s number one task; if the soil is healthy, the crops will look after themselves. As the average age of America’s farmers continues to rise, we face serious questions about what farming will look like in the near future, and who will be growing our food. Many younger people…
Read More
3 Steps to Start Your Plants Off Right
How you handle your seeds and your practices around seeding is your first chance to get your plants off to a good start and help them achieve their full potential. Ben and Penny Hewitt, authors of The Nourishing Homestead, have developed a three-step process which starts with inoculating the seeds, then sowing them in high-quality…
Read More
Pass the Walnut Syrup?
Everyone knows and loves maple syrup, and in some states (like Chelsea Green’s home state of Vermont), it’s big business. However, it’s a widespread myth that maples are the only trees that can be tapped to produce sap, according to Michael Farrell, sugarmaker and director of Cornell University’s Uihlein Forest. Sap can also be collected…
Read More
Winter in the Forest Beer: Creating Unique Drinks from Nature’s Ingredients
The art of brewing can explore far beyond the usual ingredients into a vast and luminous galaxy of wild and cultivated fruits, berries, grains, and herbs, which once provided a variety of fermented drinks as broad as the world. Now fermentation fans and home brewers can rediscover these “primitive” drinks and their unique flavors in, the…
Read More
Sprout Today, Eat Healthy Tomorrow
If you’re ready to start growing a portion of your own food, but you aren’t quite ready for something that requires a big time commitment or a lot of effort, this is a good place to start. Sprouts are easy to cultivate, mature very quickly, can be used in a variety of delicious dishes, and…
Read More
The Bio-Integrated Farm: Authors Shawn Jadrnicek and Stephanie Jadrnicek
Q: Let’s start with the title: What is a “bio-integrated farm?” A: When a component in a farm or landscape—which could be a water garden, greenhouse, or chicken coop—performs seven functions, the component becomes alive, and I call this bio-integration. The concept is derived from Bill Mollison’s definition of permaculture design “…assembling conceptual, material and…
Read More
How to Distinguish Permaculture from Natural Farming
Just what are the differences between permaculture and natural farming? How are they connected, and where do they diverge in philosophy and principle? Those questions are answered in One-Straw Revolutionary, a book that delves into the philosophy and work of Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka. In this passage, author Larry Korn compares and contrasts two…
Read More
Why You Need to Drink Wet-Hopped Beer Right Now
Wet-hopped beer is the ultimate in seasonal and local brews. It is made from fresh hops picked right off the bine in order to capture the aromatic hop flavor when it is most potent. The tricky part is fresh hops have virtually no shelf life, so brewers must spring into action as soon as the hops…
Read More
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,…
Read More
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…
Read More
Oxeye Daisy: A Plant for the Pollinators
As Invasive Species Week continues, Tao Orion, author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species, and Katrina Blair, author of The Wild Wisdom of Weeds, are sharing alternative approaches to managing and using plants considered to be “invasive.” In this excerpt, they discuss the oxeye daisy. Classification: Leucanthemum vulgare Geographical location: Western states, Pacific northwest…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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.…
Read More
Build Your Own Cold Frame, Part 2: Get a Jump on the Planting Season
The design of the cold box is the most important thing to keep in mind if you want it to be an effective tool for growing crops in the winter. Though it may seem like a complex task making a structure to shield against the winter chill, it’s a lot easier than you think. You…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More