It’s here. The garden classes are in gardens, the cooking classes are in kitchens, the nature study is in forests, the raspberries taste like raspberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries! I worked for weeks on the lesson plans for these hands-on classes, workshops, and tours and am so excited to finally roll them out. Click here for my entire…
This month’s giveaway contest is over, congratulations to the winner, Christina Weit! Christina won four February classes. Today is gorgeous, has spring fever hit you? Eliza’s urban homesteading classes at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery start next week! Come learn about edible landscaping, backyard chickens, beekeeping basics, composting, and more… now is the time to get prepared for your…
The best thing about winter salads is how easy it is to obtain a harvest. Cold months mean chores don’t have to be done in the heat, plus the pests and diseases are mostly dormant. You can’t beat the satisfaction of walking into the kitchen on a gray day carrying an armload of vibrant produce! Winter gardening at Appalachian Feet…
Touring, photographing, and sharing permaculture gardens in my area seems like I task I will never get tired of. With that in mind, welcome to my new blog series. I will be showcasing “official” tours as well as informal visits to existing and aspiring permaculture sites in the region. Learning from the ingenious little ways people connect to their ecosystem…
When I started signing up for more permaculture classes this year, my friends and family made fun of me. The thing is, permaculture is more like an artist’s palette than an exact formula. Anyone can use it, but the more you learn and practice, the more likely you are to make a masterpiece. Plus, I just love taking classes. In…
I often do or learn a heap of things at once and think I’m going to break it down into a series of bite-sized blog posts. It almost never happens — I post the first segment and then get too distracted to finish the rest. The orphaned contents of Appalachian Feet’s “drafts” folder is bursting at the seams. I don’t…
I wanted to share this free online “Introduction to Permaculture” course offered by NC State University. It’s a high-quality, 40 hour college course taught by Professor Will Hooker that really explains the fundamentals. Click here to watch the lectures. The first lecture mostly covers orientation for the live classroom students (introducing themselves, field trip carpooling, etc.). If you want to…
That may be the wordiest title I ever came up with on this blog. The short of it is, “can poke sallet be highly desirable in the garden?” Poke sallet (as in pokeweed, pokeberries, polk salad, or any of the other myriad common names and spellings you want to label Phytolacca americana) is a plant native to the southeastern US….
It’s time for the Greenville Urban Farm Tour again! When? This coming Saturday, May 12th, from 9am – 5pm. Tickets are $8 per adult (children under 12 free) and there is a group rate available on the UFT website. This year there are 31 sites to visit, 16 free workshops at the UFT’s headquarters (Crescent Studios), and bicycle tours offered…
I used to hate squirrels. Then my daughter raised and released some orphans and I began to recognize their charms and place in the ecosystem. They’re native and gardeners too — of forests. I can share my garden with them. But I still shake my fist in anguish when they forage through my newly planted beds, uprooting seeds and plants…
Today I did a lecture for the Greater Greenville Master Gardener’s Symposium titled “Unusual Vegetables and Fruits.” Since Greenville is zone 7b, the talk centered around plants that grow here. But some of these plants may grow where you live if you’re in a different zone. More people ended up at my talk than the symposium organizers were expecting which…
We have Passiflora incarnata (maypop passionvine) growing outside our back door. I’ve written in the past about how to grow this native plant for its delicious fruit, but today I wanted to share a video of our “bee bar.” I’d say they show up at first light, but really, they never leave. These sluggish insects gorge on nectar, becoming increasingly…
I felt silly displaying a potted ‘Tumbling Tom’ tomato for the Urban Farm Tour since we already had 80 tomato plants in the ground but last week it paid us back with extra early ripe cherries. Now the garden is producing handfuls of medium-sized varieties, leading up to the bumper crop we’ll be able to sell to the public. I’m…
Many organic gardeners who have grown squash in the southeast US will think this must be a practical joke. It’s not! There are chemical-free ways to grow as much squash as your “conventional” neighbors. Then you can finally participate in Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day. No really, that’s an honest-to-goodness national holiday on August 8th every year….
Our city’s Urban Farm Tour is over for this year and by all accounts was a great success — GOFO sold out of tickets early in the day and had to scramble to print even more of them! I hope everyone who toured came away feeling inspired, I was so impressed by all the enthusiastic visitors we met at our…
Urban Farm Tours (a collection of sites featuring intensive city gardening) are becoming more common these days. You may have a great one near you (if so, post the link in the comments!) Those of you in the upstate South Carolina area can check out the brand new Urban Farm Tour hosted by GOFO (Greenville Organic Foods Organization). If you’ve…
So I just posted about trading for seeds over at GardenWeb. Here’s the link if you’d like to trade! If you aren’t familiar with GardenWeb there is a tutorial on exchanging seeds and one on using the forums. I’ll also be happy to answer questions about it. Since I don’t have a lot of seeds to exchange this year, I’ve…
So… half of us are buried in snow but I know you have wonderful food and ornamental plant posts you wrote last season! Why not submit one to this month’s issue of How to Find Great Plants to help fuel our garden fever? The deadline for this issue is midnight eastern time tomorrow (January 28, 2011). It’s easy to participate,…
Fer is hosting a garden goals blog carnival at My Little Garden in Japan and oh my gosh, do I ever have a lot to do this year! I’ve included info about the Organic Growers School in March since it always heralds my spring planning. For the last three seasons I’ve jumped from garden to garden, so I haven’t been…
Organic gardening often produces healthier, more easily grown vegetables and fruits than the same crops grown with “conventional” methods. There are, however, a few crops that have a pouty reputation for organic growers. The cucurbit family claims most of these weak-kneed plants. I count on summer squash and cucumbers to be riddled with squash vine borer, cucumber worms, and fungal…