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Light Deprivation for Weed Control
Light deprivation is great low-to-no cost way to control some weeds in your garden. It’s done by covering an area with black plastic sheeting, landscape fabric, scrap sheet metal, a tarp, old carpet, or other kinds of light barriers for a few months. Alternatively, you can use carbon rich materials like paper and cardboard held…
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The Walled Garden
I’ve been enamored with the idea of a walled garden forever. Okay… not actually forever. It’s only been since my first trip to France (over 20 years ago) when I saw how beautiful they could be. Before that, walls around yards defined property lines, increased privacy, and gave cats a place to sit. And that…
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Cooking Lessons: Bouillabaisse
The very first time I had seafood stew was in my early 20’s. I ordered it at a French restaurant in the U.S. under the name “bouillabaisse”. I didn’t love it. The broth was bitter and the whole dish smelled like stale urine to me. It was a while before I dared to try that…
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The Year-Round Spice Garden (with free PDF seasonal chore calendar)
Variety is the spice of life. Likewise, spices can add immense variety and edible interest to your meals and your landscape year round. There’s a lot of crossover between spices and herbs in the kitchen. However, for garden planning purposes, it’s good to have a clear distinction between the two in mind. Herbs vs. Spices…
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Know the #1 Cause of Weeds
Depending on what kind of weeds are common to you area, you might have thousands to millions of weed seeds lurking in every garden bed. Yet only a fraction of them sprout at any given time. And some never do. Do you know why all the weeds don’t germinate at once? SHORT ANSWER: The conditions…
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Detox for Good
There are a lot of ways to detox. Clinically speaking, the term applies to weaning your body off toxic and addictive substances like alcohol, drugs, or dopamine driven activities like gambling. That kind of detoxing often requires professional assistance to get through safely and recover your health afterwords. It’s also easiest to do with the…
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Natural Garden Planning
Seed catalogs are arriving. So now is the perfect time for planning what to plant in your outdoor garden. Right? I used to think so until I realized that gardening isn’t like placing an order on Amazon. You can’t pick the plants you want and install them like you would a power cord or an…
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Hoarding
Supposedly, the average American household hoards an average of 300,000 objects. That number sounds astounding. But when I did a rough count of the non-food objects in our small kitchen I got to 800 in short order. And I’m an anti-consumer! When you factor in spaces like garages, basements, closets, sheds, and even rented storage…
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Nature Calls
In my last post on Winter Dormancy for Humans, I ended with an easy way to connect with your winter biology by asking “How do I feel right now?”. I followed that with a suggestion to wait a few moments before trying to formulate an answer. Clever readers probably noticed the contradiction. I mean what’s…