garden & food
Food Fight
The Oregonian’s Nikole Hannah-Jones recently published an article outlining Multnomah County’s new 15-year food initiative. The county seeks to design a program that will enable the region to locally grow a significant amount of the food that county residents eat. Organizers hope to make this food more affordable and accessible, helping residents move away from [...]
The Daily Environmentalist
The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices is just as valuable today as ever. The value of this book lies in its deceptive simplicity. The authors somehow manage to clearly provide the necessary insight to help anyone get a grasp on their environmental impact, and then make a simple plan for effectively reducing said impact…
Farmers Market Diary 6
Jacobs Creamery is known for their ‘award-winning’ ricotta pies and pudding. At the Hollywood market, they also provide a good selection of fresh handmade cheeses and dairy products, including ricotta, cream cheese, and a hand-churned European style butter… Our ricotta, onion, basil and Shitake pizza was the finest creation we’ve churned out to date. This specific combination is truly delectable, with the Jacobs ricotta providing the most delicious buttery base that any pizza-lover could ever hope for…
Farmers Market Diary 5
The first week of June arrived, marked by our fifth consecutive trip to the Hollywood Farmers Market. For reference, we’re following our new $30 farmers market plan, whereby we venture to the farmers market each week with a pre-set $30 budget that we have to spend –not just a budget that we can spend. Essentially, [...]
Farmers Market Diary 4
So far under the plan, we’ve tended to rely on two farms for the majority of the produce we buy at the market: Sweet Leaf Farms of Junction City, Oregon, and Deep Roots Farms of Albany, Oregon. The mushrooms come from a small grower just west of Banks, Oregon. Both Sweet Leaf and Deep Roots offer very high quality organic produce. Sweet Leaf tends to offer a wider variety of produce, priced a bit higher than other farms…
Farmers Market Diary 3
Saturday, May 23, was our third week under the new $30 farmers market plan. As I outlined in our first post, we’re now venturing to the Hollywood Farmers Market each week with a pre-set $30 budget that we have to spend –not just a budget that we can spend.
Guided by this plan, we’re forcing ourselves [...]
Farmers Market Diary 2
Last Saturday, May 16, was our second week under the new $30 farmers market plan. As I outlined in our first post, we’re now venturing to the Holly Farmers Market each week with a pre-set $30 budget that we ‘have’ to spend –not just a budget that we ‘can’ spend. In the photo in this post, you’ll see last Saturday’s $30 farmers market haul, which includes…
Garden Diary 6
…I’m a big fan of the Garden Claw; it enabled me to very easily blend-in the Black Forest soil conditioner to a tomato plot while breaking up less-desirable chunks of soil… The reason the Claw works so well is that it lets you accomplish a relatively high degree of tilling without a gas-powered rototiller –all while standing. Additionally, the Claw offers much more control over where and how deeply you till. For urban gardens, I think this key benefit is essential. A gas-powered rototiller is ideal for preparing large plots –trust me, if I had a 50′ by 100′ plot, I’d rent a gas-powered rototiller to save time. As it is, we don’t have a garden plot anywhere near that large, so the finer control potential of the Garden Claw make it ideally suited to our garden….
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