Category archive for: Organic gardening
Back homeSpontaneous salads neither sown nor stolen
The lettuces in the DemoGarden haven't even come up, yet this is the sort of salad that we've been eating for the past 3 weeks. All 18 of these vegetables grow spontaneously in our permaculture garden, most of them sown more than 3 years ago. This bouquet-eating abundance is a testament to why w... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2012 21:42
Phytoremediation at ARCAM
The shipwreck
contains the ship
The Shipwreck Contains the Ship, Urbaniahoeve installation at ARCAM in conjunction with Farming the City Saturday 7 May at 16.00h, is the closing event of the Farming the City exhibition at ARCAM. URBANIAHOEVE's phytoremediation installation on ARCAM island, titled 'The Shipwreck' will be dism... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2011 23:09
Slim Pickins winter salad
Heq yeah, we’re hardy!
But not completely; like gardener, like garden. January demonstration of rocket hardiness. While I was back in Northern California complaining that no one heats their homes, here in the Polar Circle the canals had frozen thick. We'd had night frost since the end of November, and until last... Read more
Posted on January 21, 2010 21:28
Not piss poor,
fertilized with pee
Didn't go to the farmers' market this Saturday One of the reasons I gave my Amsterdam kitchen garden the name Slim Pickins was to show that even a postage stamp-sized garden with a relatively little crop could serve up a surprising amount of food. But the real reason was that it had piss poor s... Read more
Posted on September 13, 2009 21:16
Foodscape Schilderswijk,
Den Haag’s CPUF
A scenario for planting espallier-style fruit trees in the Schilderswijk. Illustration by Jacques Abelman. As part of STROOM Den Haag’s (Centre for Art and Architecture) multi-year programme FOODPRINT, I have been commissioned to design a foodscape. Actually I am designing a Continuous Producti... Read more
Posted on September 8, 2009 20:21
Slim Pickins
restaurant review
Ground-elder ravioli & goutweed pesto with locally foraged kale flower, spinach and mint Within hours of the posting Slim Pickins was already fully booked. Plagued at its very inception with limited seating, the urban kitchen garden restaurant located on the edge of a raised bed was forced to d... Read more
Posted on May 5, 2009 14:03
Slim Pickins,
the occasional garden restaurant
Slim Pickins garden staff help with the weeding Studio Culiblog is proud to announce the opening this Sunday of it's new minimalist concept restaurant in Amsterdam Noord. Slim Pickins is an outdoor micro-eatery situated on the edge of a raised bed, in an urban kitchen garden, serving up the occ... Read more
Posted on April 21, 2009 23:49
Seed optimism
Harvesting purple mustard seeds at midwinter, more than I could ever grow or eat or pickle. Harvesting butternut seeds in the city, if I grew these here, they'd cover the southern façade. Harvesting bee balm seeds at midsummer, for more flowers than the bees need. Flow begets flow. Read more
Posted on January 29, 2009 9:47
Permaculture *relaxtivist
A thicket of rocket growing in the irrigation canals and dried mulch rotting on the beds. Relaxed permaculture is what I've decided to call this gardening technique, tailor-tuned to my garden and me. One of the principles of permaculture is to keep the ground covered at all times with either pl... Read more
Posted on January 12, 2009 14:56
Permaculture in the Winter Kitchen Garden
'Felting' the leggy bergamot mint now lining the canals into a fragrant mat of living mulch A missed flight back up to the Polar Circle from St. Etienne presented me the opportunity of a few days down south. I took the time to enjoy some rejuvenating familialarity and to tidy up the garden for ... Read more
Posted on December 11, 2008 13:26
Desertification
But before there was desertification, there was humidification. A path sketched through the bergamot. This is a painful entry for me to write because I'm suffering from a garden identity crisis. I started out this morning wanting to say something about the humidifying effect of planting green m... Read more
Posted on July 29, 2008 12:56
The Occitanian slug lounge
There are more than 12 slugs in this picture Today I moved a pile of recently weeded Jerusalem Artichokes and uncovered a sexy slug lounge. I counted more than 24 of them in a stretch of 60 cm, dressed up like little orange hedgehogs, one wearing a tiger print, plus a zillion baby slugs about to ... Read more
Posted on July 27, 2008 0:48
Biomass revisited
A travel arrangement for seedlings Some days ago I filled my tiny travel trolley 75% with winter veg seedlings leftover from the raised beds up in the Polar Circle, and left the Land of the Pitiful Sun to return to the Occitanian kitchen garden. While the unpractical but pretty summer dresses &... Read more
Posted on July 20, 2008 14:09
Butternut Brutalism
Upon returning to the new kitchen garden the next day, I felt that the parcel along the fence just wasn't speaking to me and I traded her in for the plot next door. Giddy with the even newer digs, I noticed what I had failed to see the day before, namely, useful in-situ building materials, in th... Read more
Posted on July 1, 2008 13:19
New digs in the polder circle
As of yesterday I became a multinational allotment holder. These are my new digs at Amsterdam Noord, a 7 minute bike ride from my flat, a 3 minute ferry ride from the mainland, and 4 steps off the ferry. Although the parcel seems to have some extreme shade, soil compaction and charm issues, th... Read more
Posted on June 26, 2008 14:44
A F.A.S.T. food market
Gifted organic olive oil and za'atar from Ein Hud, an unrecognised village in Israel Sustainability issues aren't only about green, sometimes they're even more fundamental than that. Food and food systems are an integral part of that story because food and agricultural policy is commonly used f... Read more
Posted on May 27, 2008 0:23
Purim power
Converting to citrus power for your electrical needs is one possible solution for a bumper crop of lemons Staring a post-Purim citrus surplus in the face, my family goes out and cuts some rug. Yesterday's email from home, making me homesick for a raucous Purim and for Meyer lemons... We also... Read more
Posted on March 22, 2008 12:50
Cover up
This is an image of my neighbour's field after he managed to scrape off every smidgeon of organic material. The word 'Dust Bowl' comes to mind. Same windy day, one field over, my little allotment is the picture of extra-crunchy soil health. Even though it's looking pretty bare compared to ... Read more
Posted on March 18, 2008 1:43
Local warming
Potager au feu. The lower bit of the Occitanian kitchen garden is clearly a chic-free zone. Burn marks indicate the size of the original fire. Yesterday in the lower garden I made an enormous fire. It was the first time in my life I was able to get it going in one go, normally it can take me th... Read more
Posted on March 5, 2008 12:14
Permaculture active
Leafy greens foraged from under the brush This year the Occitanian kitchen garden is very different than it was last year at the same time. The winter's thorough frost followed by a long wet spell has killed all 5 of my chokes and most of what I had been treating as perennial loose-leaf brassic... Read more
Posted on March 4, 2008 13:38
Homegrown
Sprouted sunflower seeds in the dead of winter Read more
Posted on February 15, 2008 20:43
Harvesting rhubarb by candlelight
Of the BBC's 100 unexpected facts that we didn't know last year I've edited the list to include only the 13 food-related facts. Apparently harvesting rhubarb by candlelight is a way to preserve even more rhubarb flavour. Because 2008 is a year for pumping up the volume, I have decided to make... Read more
Posted on January 4, 2008 12:05
The neglected autumnal
kitchen garden
Prolific biomass obscuring the cabane After 6 months of neglect, I returned to the Occitanian kitchen garden to find that in my absence it had produced 400 cubic metres of exuberant biomass. In the upper garden the cabane was completely obscured by a thicket of weeds and I'm not even emotionall... Read more
Posted on October 5, 2007 16:52
The gentlemen farmers’ summer party
Dancing with wines, dahlia fetishist, celebrity hayseed, gentle farmer-man en silhouette All natural, all gentleman, slash Friesian agro-history adept, organic farmer-man Guus yuks it up with Lisette. Then gives us a reed-obscured all-natural history lesson moving Madeleine and Hans... Read more
Posted on August 27, 2007 19:21
Exhibition the Edible City
at the NAi-M closes
The Edible City exhibition at the NAi-M (the Netherlands Architecture Institute) has finally come to a close. Showing more than 40 architectural, design and urban planning projects, the exhibition was about food systems and the urban environment. There was a time when city-dwellers could more or... Read more
Posted on June 27, 2007 15:09
Tomato marmalade
à la Tal who is
back in the Old Country
Tal taught me how to make this most delicious tomato marmalade. Actually, when Tal makes it, it's tomato jam. When I make it, it's tomato marmalade. He uses bay laurel, I was about to and then decided on rosemary. Tal's jam is wetter, better to serve with a chopped liver paté that will blow your... Read more
Posted on June 19, 2007 20:56
Butternut Update
week 24
What, you don't like my hand job? Some might call it karmic justice, but I think that I have homosexual butternut squash growing in my living room. Not that there's anything wrong with that and maybe we can chalk it up to to the fact that I can't tell the difference between the male and female ... Read more
Posted on June 18, 2007 13:04
Nasturtium shots
A toast, "To a nasturtium leaf holding a pearl of vodka" What a pretty shot. The nasturtium leaf tastes like horseradish and is a perfect pallet cleanser after the wodka di buffalo. And because it's just a drop, you can keep on drinkin'. Read more
Posted on June 14, 2007 8:58
Butternut Update
week 23
The first butternut squash flower in full bloom This week the butternut squash settled into their new mid-living room location and I started to wonder about their lack of contact with actual sunshine. I always thought of my house as light-filled, especially during the 8 month-long Dutch winter,... Read more
Posted on June 11, 2007 12:19
Edible Estates breaking ground in London
Butternut squash and nasturtiums about to go vertical Looking to get your hands dirty in London this weekend? Edible estate agent Fritz Haeg will be breaking ground on his 4th edible estate, this time in collaboration with the Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) and commissioned by the Tate Moder... Read more
Posted on May 26, 2007 12:43
Dike break at sunset
Each time I leave my Occitanian kitchen garden to go back to the Polar Circle, my neighbour Sidi ElGouche agrees to water for me a few times a week. Although he just has to divert the pipe between our allotments, let 'er rip and redivert once my garden has had a good soaking, it's a generous ges... Read more
Posted on May 16, 2007 14:28
Inadvertent
seed collecting
Nothing going on here... In December a flood swept my vertical gardening experiment clean. The entire wall of calabash was washed away. A tragedy, although that was the extent of the damage and thankfully I'm not a vertical calabash farmer. A close inspection of the dirt revealed that I still h... Read more
Posted on March 27, 2007 9:15
Left leaves
Author with 36-point fresh kill Yesterday it occured to me that it's only because the garden was neglected for such a long time that we're able to enjoy these spring flower salads and everything-but-the-squeal brassica eating experiences. The romanesca shown above was at one time a compact lig... Read more
Posted on March 25, 2007 11:08
Spring salad bouquet
After 6 months of neglect and a rather substantial flood, I really didn't expect to find much in the Occitanian kitchen garden. But in fact, we will have trouble eating our way through the sheer amount of over the top, beautifully bolted brassicas, flowering mizuna and rucola, brussels sprouts a... Read more
Posted on March 22, 2007 12:18
Foodmiles design competition winners win some JUICE
Image of judging panel used with non-tacit permission Tuesday, one week ago today was devoted to a most ironic activity. I swam back and forth to London to jury the shortlisted entries of an international competition to find design solutions to the problem of foodmiles. And by swam, I mean fle... Read more
Posted on February 6, 2007 13:18
DOTT07
(Designs of the time)
Urban Farming
Urban regeneration, edible grow zones, kitchen playgrounds and town meals In many communities fresh fruit and vegetables are hard to source and expensive. There's little awareness of local food production, the possibility of growing your own and next to no supply chain for existing producers ... Read more
Posted on January 27, 2007 9:25
The amazing
Sprout (loves) Ikebana
contest
Choreographer Martin Butler's winning entry for the category, 'Fleugalité (bamboo leaf, sango sprouts, rock chives, pea shoots) The amazing Sprout (loves) Ikebana contest was carried out in honour of chef de cuisine Tal Amitai, who was not able to be with us this last week due to the loss of hi... Read more
Posted on January 10, 2007 13:02
Sprouts love ikebana
My neighbours won the 2007 Sprouts Love Ikebana competition for the categories: 6 and under, 5 and under From more than 300 images of the sprouts love ikebana competition this weekend at the Grow Yer Own Dang Food sprout restaurant, these are the first, last and middle ones. We had winners in m... Read more
Posted on January 9, 2007 1:55
Sprout Salon Tonight promises to be parfumistic
Culiblog covergirl Iva Supic loves her up some sprouts While in another part of the world a loved one mourns the loss of a loved one, pouring over every verse of the Quran en famille, here in the Polar Circle it rains, blows and pours and we narrowly avert a Sprout War. Now that the dust has... Read more
Posted on December 15, 2006 10:38
Compost heaps of the rich and famous
The Seyferth house sports a compost heap! Well, at least of the famous. This is a shot of a compost heap in the back of the in-process home being built by designer/architect Christoph Seyferth. Although the house isn't even finished, I was pleased to see that the happening kitchen infrastructur... Read more
Posted on December 14, 2006 14:45
A sprouting lesson:
you’ve already got
what it takes
Counter-top sprouting installation chez culiblog When I remind my guests at the Grow Yer Own Dang Food micro-green cuisine concept restaurant that eating seasonal, local food is one of the most revolutionary actions that you can take against petrol consumption, right fists usually fly straight ... Read more
Posted on November 18, 2006 23:47
Micro-green restaurant officially open
Jeanette likes sprouts because they're seed-related Roqn-ass opening btw. Merveilleuse! The dear friends showed up, the food was devoured, folks asked for seconds (and got them without a wince) we danced our tocheses off until 4ish and the whole thing ended sloppily with bottles of bubbles (cav... Read more
Posted on November 4, 2006 18:56
Grow yer own dang food
Radish and leek sprouts in the low-angled polar sun FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 3, Restaurant prototype to open Grow Yer Own Dang Food, micro-green cuisine A restaurant devoted to sprouted seeds and micro-greens could only be called a Sproutstaurant. And at a Sproutstaurant one eats,... Read more
Posted on October 29, 2006 15:47
One of the perks of permaculture
Purple basil seed heads bowing down to the ground, they may re-seed at any moment. Inondation! K'tje tells me that tout le monde has been suffering terribly with the flooding of the allotments down in Gawd's Own Country. My feeling is, since my garden is situated in a flood plain, it's reasonab... Read more
Posted on October 24, 2006 23:58
Blettes noires pour Yves
Sometimes it's nice to eat really dark food. (more...) Read more
Posted on October 13, 2006 9:41
Make yer own dang
weed butter
The fresher the better, but this ball of dried leaf, brought home from the friends' Friesche farm, will do just fine. Remerçi, Madame! Of course you can substitute any old weed in this weed butter recipe, but I'm old fashioned and just like to use weed. The culinary reasoning behind making but... Read more
Posted on 2:51
Got confusion about the nature of natural food?
This block print from Masanobu Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution' is used entirely without permission. This is what I'm re-reading right now and I'd like to share it. Here is a short quote from Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution. It should definitely be on the reading list for anyone interes... Read more
Posted on October 1, 2006 3:33
Food causes gas, and by gas, I mean greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas emissions linked to the production of a kg (roughly 2 pounds) of food. Meat refers to the "carcass equivalent", with bones but without processing, packaging, or transportation. Source IFEN 2004 for France Jean-Marc Jancovici, whose website on climate change with readable, chartfu... Read more
Posted on September 7, 2006 6:53
The issue of financial gain with regard to an allotment
My neighbour Sidi ElGouche is smokin' again. Yesterday my dear colleague (from the Dott07 CityFarming project) posed the very good question of how much one could earn from one's kitchen garden. Apparently he had read two disparate studies and the numbers varied ten-fold as to what a garden allo... Read more
Posted on September 5, 2006 15:41
This year’s potatoes, last year’s mushrooms
Peruvian purple potato mash with pickled grisets (tricholoma terreum). Colours unretouched. It's a luxury to wear yer bikini top as a bra and to get sick of peaches and yer own homegrown tomatoes, but now that the temperatures are regularly dipping below 28°c, Lawd knows we need our carbs. I'm... Read more
Posted on August 26, 2006 23:39
Wasps squatting the kitchen garden
A wasp nest hiding in one of the red currant bushes preventing harvest Last summer we were the best of buds, sharing berry bushes, this year my mere presence sends the wasps into such a frenzy that we barely fit in the same garden. I've already been stung five times, including one multiple stin... Read more
Posted on August 23, 2006 12:50
Inside the secret gardens of our culinary elite
Photograph of photographs of Terrance Conran and his cabbages by Peter Dench at Telegraph Magazine Last Saturday's Telegraph Magazine reported on the kitchen gardens of twenty-three of England's most 'reknowned' 'cooks'. From several versions of elaborate kitchen gardens, to modest collectio... Read more
Posted on August 19, 2006 12:22
Ziggizagna, pasta folds of summer harvest
Julie Upmeyer puts her face in a bunch of freshly picked purple basil and miraculously sheds 16 years! Normally mid-August is time of change in the Occitanian weather; no more highs in the 40's and we can start expecting violent thunderstorms. But this year Mama Nature has heralded an abrupt an... Read more
Posted on August 16, 2006 11:50
Actually, this IS my harvest
Back to square one, but with better soil composition At the kitchen gardens, the question on everyone's lips is, 'Don't you feel utterly demoralised by the fact that since January, you've only been able to produce a shitload of weeds?" But because I can't admit defeat in front of my neighbours,... Read more
Posted on July 28, 2006 19:14
Grow yer own dang biomass inadvertently
Occitanian kitchen garden in May, as neat as you please Way back in January, and then again in March, and again in April and May, I had big plans for my kitchen garden. Big and neat. Knowing that I would have to return from Occitania to the Polar Circle for two months of gainful employment, I a... Read more
Posted on July 16, 2006 15:54
CPULs when bad acronyms happen to good people
It's pronounced 'SEE, PULSE' and stands for Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. Architects Viljoen, Bohn and Howe's positively radical notion of combining productive urban landscapes with continuous landscapes, proposes a new urban design strategy that would change the appearance of contempo... Read more
Posted on June 9, 2006 13:51
Grow yer own dang biomass inadvertently
Way back in January, and then again in March, and again in April and May, I had big plans for my kitchen garden. Big and neat. Knowing that I would have to return from Occitania to the Polar Circle for gainful employment, I alphabetized my seed beds and planted sticks for beans and gourds to cli... Read more
Posted on June 7, 2006 15:06
The vertical
kitchen garden
Spring planting is finished but before returning to the Polar Circle, I took this image of the bamboo framework for my vertical gardening concept. The plan is to train the wandering plants (melons, gourds, squash) to grow up the wide end of the frame, allowing them optimum sunlight, saving roami... Read more
Posted on May 12, 2006 10:14
Kitchen garden inventory
What is intensely boring to one person can be rivetting to another. Case in point: my kitchen garden inventory as of the 10th of May 2006: Upper Garden Row 0 l: (up) sage, cali poppy, silver dollar, rocket, (down) opal basil Row 0 r: (down) basil, (down) opal basil Row 1l: (up) sa... Read more
Posted on May 10, 2006 9:07
Wild tomatoes
for guests
Here's a clump of wild tomato seedlings with the exploded tomato skin still attached to the roots like a busted balloon. They're popping up everywhere in my kitchen garden, and to think I wasted all that time fussing with the foetuses and a propagator when they can grow themselves all by their l... Read more
Posted on May 7, 2006 10:02
Note to self: search for suitable acronyms
CCLPSGGCWPMC or backwards, CMPWCGGSPLCC. In the last row (covered in hay): courgette (gold rush), cukes, luffah, pumpkin, spaghetti squash, gourds, galia melon, cantaloup, watermelon, poblano pepper, marconi pepper, corn. At this stage in development, I'm having trouble telling the gourdy, cukey, ... Read more
Posted on May 6, 2006 11:53
Pest control
The scales are tipping at the allottments, the organic gardeners are in the majority! Although our numbers are too small to make a real statistic, the demographic of the organic group is thoroughly mixed. In the image above, Sidi AlGouche, not exactly an organic gardener, has decided not to spray ... Read more
Posted on May 5, 2006 11:39
First strawberries of the year!
The strawberry nearest to the camera is the first strawberry that I've grown. What a marvel. Before I tasted strawberries from the garden, I couldn't understand what exactly was so special about strawberries. Now I know I needto grow twice as many and am eager to try different varieties. The nativ... Read more
Posted on May 4, 2006 13:58
My cover cropslash green manureexperiment is a success
Mustard microgreens, about to be turned into green manure This January in an experiment in producing biomass, maintaining good soil condition and weed mitigatation in my lower garden, I planted green manure cover crops. Of course nothing sprouted because in January the ground is far too cold and y... Read more
Posted on May 3, 2006 11:05
Kitchen garden before Ice Saints
My kitchen garden on the 27th of April Some people grow up with socialist folk songs, others grow up with Catholic weather knowledge. Until now, I'd never even heard about Ice Saints, but that was before I had a kitchen garden. Ice Saints refers to the 11th, 12th, and 13th May, the feast days o... Read more
Posted on May 2, 2006 13:49
Urban gardening lessons for Dutch children
On an island in Amsterdam's Westerpark, a horizontal grid of 1m2 garden plots are being prepared for the children. The sign says that around 500 children will receive weekly education about nature and the environment on these plots. Although this garden grid offers an extreme image of mini-allotme... Read more
Posted on April 21, 2006 7:13
Soy vey is mir
Dang birds, eating my beans! If you're going to kill a sprouting soy bean plant, the least you could do is eat the whole bean. Note to self: Next time make a scarecrow. Tomorrow I return to the Netherlands. Hope the snows will have cleared... technorati tags: allotment, kitchen garden> Read more
Posted on March 6, 2006 23:28
Note to self: alfalfa, mustard, buckwheat, red night kidney, adzuki, soy, soy, soy
This is the planting order when facing the lower allotment. The acronym is AMBRASSS, which could stand for the the English embarass, if the cover crops once again fail to thrive. If the cover crops survive my handling and the weather, I can pronounce the acronym in French as in je t'embrace, which... Read more
Posted on March 2, 2006 22:22
Irrigate, ice skate
Took the new irrigation system out for a spin and it looks like I have a hunquering for the Netherlands. The idea is that all manner of plant life will grow along the borders, if it would just stop freezing for one day. Vernacular architecture. Surely I have the ugliest shed in the gardens and ... Read more
Posted on February 28, 2006 23:56
Spring is a time of rebirth
But not for everyone. Upon inspection of my lands I discovered a dead mouse. And then another, and another. In total, there were six dead mice on my new plot! Looks like someone is a picky eater. Actually, its not spring here, its still freezing five degrees in the night. I returned to my Occi... Read more
Posted on February 26, 2006 10:07
Grow yer own dang food
(part 1)
Image of sprouting bread courtesy of Cygalle Shapiro Back in the eighties, as a student at the University California at Santa Cruz, I lived in a vegetarian commune with a bunch of hippies. As hippies, we produced our own sprouts, yoghurt and salsa fresca for the entire commune, approximately th... Read more
Posted on January 30, 2006 11:52
Weedy plot, commuting, cover crops and humble pie
People who know me well would never say that I'm a practical woman. Now, all the more so. I've left my winter quarters in Occitania to return to the Polar Circle, where paid work is calling. Screaming, really. In gardening there's a time and a place for everything, and ever since I've had this gar... Read more
Posted on January 11, 2006 0:34
Brussels pearls neither bitter nor farty
Look what Maman brought home for dinner tonight! While everyone else in the valley is shooting at wild boar, I managed to wrestle to the ground and uproot this domestic brussels sprouts tree. Admittedly, that sounds like I'm getting the short end of the stick, but the pearly buttons and sweet leav... Read more
Posted on January 6, 2006 18:38
Green manure cover crops and another garden parcel
Yesterday I aquired another parcel of land when I went to pay my yearly subscription at Monsieur L. Thirty-five euros per parcel (roughly 100m2) and all the river water you can use. Still, with the chateau of the Comtesse de R. in plain view, we the serfs of the C'-ac allotments know that all of thi... Read more
Posted on January 5, 2006 10:17
Another gushy garden story
Why is this eighty-seven year old man smiling? One possible reason is that he has a garden... and neighbours. If I am any sort of judge of things that make one happy, I can report that the addition of a garden and all the things it brings with it, fresh veg and fruit, new friends, a sense of commu... Read more
Posted on January 4, 2006 9:05
Birthday picnic au plein air
With a small group of friends we celebrated my birthday with a fresh and freezing garden picnic in the painfully crisp air. Champagne, oysters and a sorrel quiche, in the case of the sorrel, eaten one meter away from the very plant that grew it. New neighbours, new but wonderful friends, all kicki... Read more
Posted on December 24, 2005 13:13
Winter BBQ practice down at the kitchen gardens
Can kitchen garden soil ever really have enough potash? A quick look around the environs and the answer is a resounding 'no'. It's fire lighting time, again! All the guys are doing it. Really. Every single last one of them. Because lighting fires is like youth serum. technorati tags: garde... Read more
Posted on December 23, 2005 15:25
Sort of public gardens
The urban garden is thriving in Istanbul. Walking around the Biennale's parallel programme locations in Karaköy, I spied some ad hoc agriculture in 'public' planters. These images show vegetables being grown amidst 'ornamental' city landscaping. Chapeau to the hacker-farmers growing squ... Read more
Posted on October 21, 2005 16:04
Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates
homesteading on the suburban lawn
Start with one suburban home in Middle America (images of Salina Kansas Edible Estate © Fritz Haeg, used entirely with permission) Situated on what was once a massive sugar beet plantation, the iconic housing development of Lakewood is an embodiment of an American Dream in which each single-fa... Read more
Posted on September 26, 2005 12:34
Yurt and garden
My garden at three and a half weeks old, is thriving! My yurt, set up at the edge of a vineyard, with views into two river valleys and mountains on all sides, is now little more than a glorified bedroom, shouting distance from the 'real house' in town. But in one week's time a very special guest... Read more
Posted on August 13, 2005 11:24
So except for the vodka…
We thought that homegrown bloody marys would be an appropriate drink to celebrate his 44th birthday and to give the yurt a proper yurt-warming. All of the ingredients except the ever-important electrolytic enhancors were homegrown or grown within 2 kilometres of the yurt. Thankfully more homeg... Read more
Posted on August 6, 2005 12:48
So except for the coffee…
You may have noticed that culiblog has entered holiday mode. Hopefully this will all end soon. Profound apologia for the die-hards, but it's summer and all I want is homegrown. Please just go outside. Here in Occitania, most of our food doesn't even make it the fridge before we've brushed the d... Read more
Posted on July 26, 2005 16:34
Blackberry harvest
Je suis arriivé! This is half of the blackberry harvest of just 5 days. We ate the other half while contemplating what we should do with them. Kristi produced some blackberry sauce which we slathered on vanilla ice cream. In a few minutes we'll go to the garden and I'll plant the ginger plants. ... Read more
Posted on July 14, 2005 10:59
It won’t fit
This last week I officially inherited a kitchen garden. My dear friend KvR facilitated the entire affair in my absence and took this photograph of the allotment overlaid with my planting wishlist. As you can see I have not been blessed with a practical mind but KvR put things into perspective for ... Read more
Posted on July 9, 2005 11:24
Fallen Fruit
Red apples on the left, yellow apples on the right. All of the apples were going to waste. As a fan of food foraging and fruit stealing, and as a woman who had never bought fruit except for bananas, mangos and the occasional avocado until she moved up North to the Polar Circle, I applaud the Fa... Read more
Posted on May 7, 2005 1:58
Poison
Oleander means 'poisonous for man(kind)' and the flowers, leaves and sap of this plant are indeed poisonous for humans to ingest. Upon my arrival here (2 weeks ago today!) Kristi asked me to take care of her failing oleanders. I got straight to work, watering, inspecting, killing large herds of or... Read more
Posted on July 29, 2004 12:52
