Eating Local in the Summer Is Easy
Despite the sweltering, miserable, suffocating heat of Mississippi in the summer, I still adore this time of year because I am able to grow a lot of my own food, watch hummingbirds (from a distance though because they're a little too much like big bees for my taste), and have daylight until after 8pm. I also enjoy buying vegetables from an old man on the side of the road and going to the farmers' market. Side note: This year, my husband and I are even running a booth at the market. We bake and sell fresh bread. It's...
Springtime Blooms Both Outside and In
It’s been spring around here for a while, but I’m just now getting around to posting about it. Frankly, I’ve been either working through it or sitting out on my back deck enjoying it. Now that nearly everything is in bloom (azaleas still to come), I’ll show you what I’ve been enjoying for the last few weeks. The quince was the first to bloom, and what a show it puts forth. These bushes are quite humdrum throughout most of the year—little foliage and thorny branches—but they sure make up for it in the early spring when they fill with beautiful pink...
I Killed a Frog
Spring doesn’t normally conjure up images of dead frogs, but, for me this year, it does. We bought a house last summer, and the yard (I’m tempted to call it a garden after having finished Michael Pollan’s Second Nature) is beautiful but quite overgrown. We’ve recently been working on the four raised beds/islands that will soon be our herb and cut-flower gardens. They had a variety of bulbs, roses, and other plants in them, but, in order to use them as we wanted, we had to break them up and get out the weeds. This meant a lot of work...
Fake Plastic Trees? Howard Says, “Yes.”
Over the past week or two, I’ve been reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and I’ve been fascinated over and over again. Fascinated that choices I’ve made in the past were the right ones, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Fascinated at the damage the corn industry not only does to humans but to the environment (perhaps a much costlier damage in the long run). Fascinated at how quickly a ruined ecosystem can be rebuilt, when animals and plants are reintroduced and managed appropriately, meaning in accordance with their evolution. Fascinated at the multi-millenia-long relationship humans have had with eating meat....
Seed Saving in the Fall Means Money Saving in the Spring
The weather is so beautiful today that it has me thinking about gardening. I spent most of the afternoon perusing my Organic Gardening issues and planning out the spring beds. Although this is very out of season and perhaps not all that useful to folks in January, I’m posting about my seed saving techniques for peppers this past year. For the past few years, I’ve been working on becoming a better gardener. I discovered in college that I liked houseplants and started there many years ago. I then graduated to...
Now Reading
Planned books:
None
Current books:
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The Western Intellectual Tradition, from Leonardo to Hegel by Jacob Bronowski
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The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Recent books:
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett
- Wandering Star (Lannan Translation Selection Series) by J.M.G. Le Clézio
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