Gardening is a good idea. The more people garden the better things will get. These are the kinds of thoughts taking root as I wrap up my 6-month basic Master Gardener Volunteer training program. (see my post on master gardening ) I’ve been to all 12 3-hour classes, and left […]
I learned a ton this weekend at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair on everything from straw bale building to how to make a solar food dryer that works in Wisconsin, but what I want to share today are five tips on how to eat in a way that is healthy […]
A strawberry picked and placed directly into one’s mouth at its moment of perfect ripeness is one of life’s most marvelous sensations, and one of the most elusive. Most of the berries you harvest will be packed away and pulled out of the freezer and enjoyed in August, October and […]
It took me a while to make myself stop and check out the runty little apples and pint-sized pears that Future Fruit was offering from a card table at the Dane Count Farmers’ Market. I knew I shouldn’t turn my nose up at organic fruit just because it wasn’t as […]
Saturday was workout for the windshield wipers as I drove through fog and rain to Weston’s Antique Apple Orchards in the Prospect Hill Settlement Historic District of New Berlin, Wisconsin. I went to learn how to graft antique apple trees onto modern, semi-dwarf root stock. Weston’s Orchards is one of […]
Yesterday was Doug’s and my 32nd anniversary. It is serendipitous that our anniversary is also Earth Day, but it makes a fantastic reminder of the values that drew us together in the first place. This year we celebrated by planting our raspberry patch. According to Growing Raspberries in Wisconsin, “with […]
Things are getting exciting in our mostly-finished greenhouse! Last year we raced to get the growing beds built and filled before the ground froze. This March we raced again to finish the top edge of the boxes so we could plant. By then the temperatures in the greenhouse were staying […]
Two years ago, while striding up through the woods to the top of our land, my eye fell on some delicate white-petaled flowers growing in the shelter of our biggest oak. I hadn’t noticed them before so I leaned over and looked closer. Then I swore. Garlic mustard! The first […]
I garden like I cook – using a mix of intuition, inspiration, opportunity and random readings. This system works better for cooking, where any totally “out there” idea produces just a single adventure for the taste buds rather than a failed crop for the year. This spring I finally enrolled […]
GUEST POST BY DOUG HANSMANN This month marks the first plantings in the greenhouse Denise and I built on the south wall of our barn. The first, we hope, of many productive growing seasons. The concrete footings for the greenhouse were poured in the summer of 2007 when the barn […]
Digging in the Driftless 