We had so much fun being one of the Host Coops on the Seattle Tilth City Chicken Coop Tour this weekend. It was a warm sunny day, and there was a very strong turnout, about 150 people came through our backyard during the tour hours. It was great to “talk chicken” with so many wonderful [...]
Entries Tagged as 'urban farming'
Chicken Tour: Not the “New Black”
July 12th, 2010 · 9 Comments
Tags: chickens, garden, urban farming
Seattle Tilth City Coop Tour July 10th!
July 2nd, 2010 · 2 Comments
We hope to see you Saturday, July 10th, on Seattle Tilth’s City Coop Tour. The Tangled Nest coop is one of nearly fifty coops throughout the city open for touring, chicken-visiting, question-asking, community-building, and overall inspiration. Seattle has become a world-class city for backyard chickens and other urban livestock. On the tour, you’ll see every [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Grow With the Flow–Pee On Earth Day is June 21st
June 15th, 2010 · 10 Comments
Start drinking water, friends–Pee-On-Earth Day is coming fast! On June 21st (also the Solstice, of course) people across the hemisphere will be celebrating the clean, phosphorous and nitrogen rich liquid we produce every day. Green design theorist, William McDonough (coauthor of the iconic Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things), likes to say, [...]
Tags: energy use, urban farming, waste reduction
Plan Now for a Late-Summer Pea Harvest!
March 8th, 2010 · 6 Comments
Here in the Pacific Northwest we say, “Plant your peas by President’s Day,” and though I wander about pontificating this wisdom, I never quite manage to follow it. As usual, I’m late with my pea planting this year, but now that I’m finally getting to it, I wanted to let ya’ll in on a little [...]
Tags: garden, seasons, urban farming
Our Urban Chicken Coop Plan
February 7th, 2010 · 36 Comments
Feed stores will be getting their chicks in the next couple of months, and if you’re pondering the addition of a backyard flock this year (we hope you are!), it’s time to start thinking about a coop. There’s still lots of time–this year’s chicks won’t be ready to go outside by themselves until May or [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Upcycled Burlap Bags in the Garden (and Farewell to Grass)
February 1st, 2010 · 25 Comments
Last year we expanded our vegetable garden three-fold by converting grass into raised beds. My plan for last autumn was to sheet mulch the last row of grass that receives any sun, making it ready for spring planting. Sheet mulching is the great, labor-saving method of converting any grassy-weedy area into a nutrient-rich garden bed [...]
Tags: garden, permaculture, upcycling, urban farming
Coffee Chaff Chicken Coop Litter: Creative Upcycling for the Urban Farmer
January 2nd, 2010 · 24 Comments
My friend David Ruggiero is working on a new project called “Upcycling Northwest.” Upcycling, of course, is the in-word for smarter/better recycling, making use of the energy in the initial production of something, rather than using more energy to break it down into raw materials–or, as David puts it, finding “the highest and best re-use [...]
Tags: chickens, garden, upcycling, urban farming, waste reduction
Seed Saving for the Faint of Heart
October 16th, 2009 · 2 Comments
It’s the end of the harvest season, and although a great deal of my mind and energy is turned to enjoying the fruits of this year’s produce (today I’m canning applesauce and freezing pureed sugar pie pumpkin) already I find myself dreaming of the spring garden. Part of this impulse, I realize, is inspired by [...]
Tags: Uncategorized, canning/preserving, garden, urban farming
Oddball Eggs in the Coop
October 8th, 2009 · 20 Comments
A guest post from my daughter Claire:
Have you ever heard of a wrinkled egg? An egg with 2 yolks? A gray egg with bumps all over? Well, neither had I until our chickens started laying.
On the first day of laying, my mom came out to me saying, “Claire! We’ve got our first egg!” And when [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Permaculture Happens: Adapting the Three Sisters
July 31st, 2009 · 1 Comment
While puttering in the garden the other day, I noticed that a couple of the Kentucky Blue Pole beans has escaped their proper pole, and were vining about the mammoth sunflower planted next to them.
I leaned over to gently unwrap the beans, and return them to the bamboo teepee I’d constructed for them and all [...]
Tags: garden, permaculture, urban farming
