I’ve been perusing a beautiful new book by Barbara Pleasant, The Complete Compost Gardening Guide. Pleasant invites us into the rich underworld of our backyard soil, asking us to see it as a living food web, rather than a simple input-output system. In one of my favorite sections, she discusses the microscopic fungi that live [...]
Entries Tagged as 'urban farming'
Stubble Planting: Hidden Worlds and No-till Gardens
July 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments
Tags: garden, permaculture, urban farming
The Summer Solstice Garden
June 20th, 2009 · 7 Comments
Remember the mounded earth raised beds that looked like a graveyard and made me cry? After some sun, rain, and a fair bit of work, this garden is now one of my favorite places in all the world.
February above, June below:
Here’s today’s view through the chicken coop door:
We grow only what we truly love to [...]
Tags: fruit trees, garden, urban farming
Raising Chicks: A Simple Biddy Box/Brooder (for first world chickens)
May 2nd, 2009 · 5 Comments
Last summer we spent two months traveling in Kenya and Tanzania, spending a fair bit of time in small, off-the-track villages. There, nearly everyone keeps chickens, which roam free in the dirt roads, alleys, fields, and schoolyards. Most homes have a shelter for their chickens, with a roof and a nestbox, but the hens and [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Why We’re Raising Chickens in the City
April 30th, 2009 · 11 Comments
I write against the background sound of constant sweet cheeping–three baby chicks now inhabit a corner of our mudroom, just off the kitchen. We first raised chickens about nine years ago, when it was still something of a curiosity to do so in the city. Now backyard chickens in Seattle are so hip they’re almost [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
The Perfect Backyard Fruit Tree–Four Asian Pears in One
March 30th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Fruiting trees offer such a wonderful way to reclaim and rebuild the fertility of our urban yards–if all goes well, one planting will provide sweet food for years to come. This weekend we planted our newest fruit tree, a little four-way Asian pear. Four varieties are grafted onto one tree. The varieties cross-pollinate one another, [...]
Tags: fruit trees, garden, indoor gardening, urban farming
