Last year we went on a short road trip to Montana. We made sure to take some of our garden produce with us to use as we stopped over at campsites on our trip. Taking the Garden Camping Chad had thinned our carrot beds so we had a harvest of lots of small, adorable little…
Category: Gardening
Garden News: Summer’s Harvests – 2019
Winter seems like a good time to look back at the past year’s summer bounty and see what did well for us out here in the high desert. Here are some of the highlights: ‘Lemon Boy’ tomatoes. I’m trying to keep my acidic food intake low and these tomatoes are great. They are low acid…
Garden News: Winter Seed Catalogs and Garden Planning
My spirits tend to get low during the winter – the post-holiday blues, gloomy weather, and reduced outdoors time always get to me. Winter here in NE Utah is long, but I have something to cheer me up and carry me through: seed catalogs and garden planning. By mid-January, there’s a stack of seed catalogs…
Garden News: First Bean Harvest of Summer – 2019
Growing heirloom snap beans This spring as I planned our garden, I wanted to make sure we planned heavy on produce that would get us through the winter – including lots of winter squash and dry beans. After Chad and I reviewed my plan, we realized that it was VERY bean heavy,
Garden News: Harvesting Apricots – 2019
Harvesting Apricots in July in Utah We have one mature apricot tree on our property. Mostly every year it blooms a bit early, then a frost comes along and kills all the blossoms off, knocking them to the ground, meaning that there will be no apricots for us. When we noticed the tree covered in…
Tips: How to Keep Track of Your Plantings in a Permaculture Garden
Keeping Track Of What You Plant In Your Garden A few years ago I excitedly planted several varieties of snap beans and dry beans in the same section of the garden. At the time of planting, I marked the different varieties with wooden markers, so I didn’t think I’d have any problem knowing which was…
Quotes: Allowing Nature to Return
“Although it would be highly arrogant of us to think we could actually design ecosystems, we believe that we can create a balanced ecological agricultural landscape by allowing nature to return to the land.” – Darrel Frey in Bioshelter Market Garden
Quotes: Solutions in Cultural and Ecological Systems
Permaculture attempts to find solutions in cultural and ecological systems…
Cultivate Patience
One of the lessons of Permaculture is to first of all, observe. In other words, be patient and survey the scene before you take action. This is something I personally struggle with since I get very excited and enthusiastic about new ideas. While I do like observing, sometimes the patience part just gets away from me….
Garden News: Polyculture Garden in Late Summer
On this last day of August the days are still hot and I find myself longing for fall. The garden is producing beautifully, and everything seems as if it will keep on going this way forever. But I try to remember not to take things for granted – the last warm days, the bounty of…
Gardening: Composting in the Desert
Anyone who gardens or simply cooks a lot of vegetables quickly finds out – you must have a compost pile! Vegetable waste translates into useful fertilizer and soil very quickly if you compost, so it is a huge waste NOT to create some composting system – not to mention the cost of buying bags of…
Gardening: Desert Garden Design
Over the past ten years or so my husband has been planting a fairly traditional garden. Each year he tills the ground with a tractor then digs out rows to plant his seeds and transplants. With my visions of permaculture I of course wasn’t satisfied with this approach. Tilling with a tractor compresses the soil and also…
Gardening: Gardening in the Desert
Contrary to what you might think, people can and do garden in the desert. However there are certain obstacles to overcome that those of you in more clement areas won’t have to worry much about. For one thing, we only get about 7 inches of rain a year here. Yes, a YEAR. Back in NC…
Garden News: Cold Frame Conundrum
I have four cold frames that I made using plastic storage bins and two more that use glass with the thermal mass of bricks and stone. These are experimental and so far I’m seeing some clear differences in the results. The seeds started in the thermal mass cold frames are thriving and growing much more quickly than…
Books: Permaculture A Designer’s Manual
All you permies out there have surely at least heard of Bill Mollison’s monumental tome, Permaculture A Designer’s Manual. I have been eyeing it for years but always ended up buying other permaculture books instead. Two thinks put me off about buying this book, its price (upwards of $100) and its monumentalness. Maybe I just…
Garden News: New Cold Frame
Me and my sweetie went a little crazy ordering seeds a couple of weeks ago. When we combined households last year our seed collections expanded dramatically! I added a lot of perennials, herbs and flowers to the mix, he brought a ton of tomatoes, peppers and squash. But somehow, it seemed we still needed more seeds. And…
Taking the Plunge
After several years of dabbling in permaculture and dreaming of taking a permaculture design course, I am finally committing myself to an online certification program, the one started by Bill Mollison, no less. Although taking an in person, on-site course at a permaculture learning center is extremely enticing, I won’t be able to take 2…
Hearthwilde 