Ecological Gardening and Other Creative Pursuits
Do you keep a record of what is bloom throughout the year? Since we started keeping bees, I have become much more aware of what is blooming when – particularly during those months on either end of the warm season, when the weather is unsettled and food for them can be scarce. Here is my current list.
This post is about focus, unfocus, hocus-pocus, and how diversity helps battle adversity. All this and figuring out how to define who you are, what you do, and what you can offer in 24 words or less – which is pretty much an identity crisis. Obviously, I took more that 24 words.
“By now you should have a pretty good idea what you will be growing and where…” That’s a quote from Erica over at NW Edible Life. If you are not quite this together, take heart. Here’s a post about narrowing the seed decision. Or not.
Bees, bee plants, rainwater catchment, spiral gardens, scything, mulching, garlic, unusual fruits, perennial vegetables: here is what worked (or NOT) in our garden last year. Incorporating ideas for 2014….
When it comes to mold and fungi, how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys? This post provides several preventative measures as well as quick fixes to mildew, molds, and blights. The key: focus on improving the entire immune system. Treat the whole system, not just the symptom.
If you want to convert an old orchard to a self-sustaining food forest, start with the SOIL. Billions of creatures can live in a single teaspoon, all connected by miles of fungal mycelium. It’s an entire universe beneath our feet. Prepare to be amazed.
Wishing you abundance in your life and in that of all those you touch. May your holiday be full of love and laughter! Thanksgiving is every day – and every day an opportunity to make a difference.
Still looking for heirloom, open-pollinated, non-GMO plants and seeds? Check out this list! So many to choose from! And what an opportunity for each of us to be a steward of our food heritage!
New Seeds for 2022 (collected in 2021) We didn’t collect nearly as many seeds this last year as we have in years previous. Below is our current list. To order, please contact me. We still operate on a “gift economy” basis – pay what you can – or just the postage. Spread plants and cheer! Our “Gift … Read more
Personally, I think New Year’s resolutions are over-rated and goal-setting can be counterproductive. A To-Do list, though, Yes! Break it down into action items! Here’s what’s in store for the garden!
Wow. What a transformation! Here are 12 accomplishments and lessons learned in the 2012 garden. It’s all good! And 2013 promises to be even better!
View more gifts at Zazzle. (It might take a moment, but a series of images should start above this space! If not, you might try “refresh”) Have you heard of Zazzle? You can spend a lot of time there! It’s a place to get your photos or artwork put on everything from aprons to zippered … Read more
I am a big fan of Chelsea Green Publishing – (so much so, in fact, that I signed up to be an affiliate). Ok – sure – you *might* be able to get it cheaper through Amazon (not always though! Check Chesea’s sales!) – BUT – if you are in a position to be able … Read more
A Series of Connecting Plant Guilds I often think of our garden as a series of overlapping “rooms” with different light, water, and soil conditions that define them. Then it is a simple matter of matching the right plant to the right space and figuring out what works together in space and time. But nature … Read more
Thinking of a “3 Sisters’ Garden”? (corn, beans, and squash together). Can you still plant corn in the Pacific Northwest? I planted June 16 last year, sort of 3-sisters’ style (sort of not). Great results! Read on!
Is it too late to plant spinach? When should you plant tender veggies? What to plant? Did you miss your planting window? Or is it just opening? These questions and more, not necessarily answered.
Before we coined the word, “Permaculture,” Nature was already perfecting it on her own. Here, Paul Gautschi describes his methods of mimicking nature by applying mulch in his garden. The results? Absolutely amazing! His approach has recently been featured in a film, “Back to Eden.” Happy International Permaculture Day!
Happy Earth Day! In celebration, we are releasing somewhere around 20,000 bees into their new home, a Warre Hive situated on the back side of Barbolian Field. Here are a few videos to show you how we are getting ready for this big event (and conquering a few fears in the process!)
Looking for a good recipe for Nettle Soup? Look no farther! All these nutrient-dense weeds growing out there wild and free – and free for the taking! Indulge in one of nature’s superfoods!
Has winter exposed your garden as a bunch of boring rectangles and squares? Do you wish it more replicated real life, running in circles? There is help for people like us. Work WITH nature to transform your labor-intensive squares into a self-supporting food forest.
Do you make garden resolutions? I’m going to keep it simple in 2012 – going to make it a year to slow down, linger awhile, and smell the flowers. A garden teaches us so much if we just stop, look, and listen.
Ok. We’re in countdown-to-Christmas mode. We love the idea of handmade gifts, but finding time to make them is another matter. Here’s a strategy on how to manage your time and achieve your wildest dreams. Ok, maybe not that exactly.
Here’s the basic recipe: turkey, pumpkin, whole eggs, rice flour, nutritional yeast, a little oil and molasses. No wheat, no corn, no artificial anythings. Give your dog something to howl about!
Halloween Night! What a fright! Protect yourself with Transylvanian Garlic! Special sale on braids – while supplies last. Warning! It packs more than just a little bite. Seriously. I warned you. Vampires need not apply.
We planted my mother with the dogs in the pet cemetery. It’s true. She would have wanted it that way, right next to her best friend, little Lambchop. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The cemetery, which we affectionately call “Boot Hill,” sits on a little knoll with a view of the Olympic Mountains, … Read more
If you’re looking for a really good book on permaculture, check out Toby Hemenway’s “Gaia’s Garden, A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture,” second edition. This book was life-changing for me – and could be for the world, if we would only apply it.
I’ve hit a turning point. Actually, several of them. In the process, I’ve been examining my self-imposed limitations, my concept of sustainability, and why now is the best time to break a few rules. Another lengthy psycho-analysis post of how our gardens teach us much about life and visa versa – and what to do about it.
“Lasagna Gardening” – heard of it? read it? Here’s my review of the book and a take on a method that heaps organic matter on top of weeds and lets you kick back while nature does the work. Also a tip on slug control that doesn’t involve squishing them with your bare hands or watching them shrivel under salt.
Blame it on Seasonal Affective Disorder if you wish, but this is the time of year when many of us otherwise-very-reasonable people succumb to buying seeds for things we know we don’t have room for or can’t possibly grow in our zones. We need to get real. A strategy. A garden PLAN. I’ve been reading a lot of books this winter and am passing on some cool ideas – obviously, not my own. This post is an introduction.
Time to plan this year’s garden! In this post, I share a bunch of pictures of plants I grew from Renee’s Garden Seeds – things like poppies, morning glory, larkspur, yellow pole beans, beets, kohlrabi, and more. These will definitely be on my “grow again” list.
Did you make any gardening New Year’s resolutions this year? Do you have a strategy when it comes to keeping up with your garden? Last year, I used goal-setting and time-management techniques to try to get an upper hand on the weeds. My mission was to “Establish Boundaries” over which no weed should dare cross! Lesson learned: weeds do not respect my boundaries. Many things – particularly the garden – are beyond my control. This year, I’m working more from an attitude of cooperation rather than conflict. We’ll see whether Mother Nature agrees.
A happy Thanksgiving to one and all, and a few thoughts about abundance, gratitude, supporting family farms, and thinking about what is important in life. Thank you everyone for all your support, and may you have a wonderful and safe holiday! Remember to buy local!
No time to lose! You still have time to harvest things to use in making gifts from the garden. Holiday gift ideas include seed sharing, taking cuttings for propagating plants, herb blends, food treats, an assortment of crafts, and a recipe for calendula salve.
So many reasons why I love this simply gorgeous time of year! But aaaghhh! So much to do! …last-minute scramble to button things up for winter, can and freeze surplus produce, get the garlic in the ground, don’t forget fall cover crops…and what to do with all those apples? Try this Skillet Apple Cake Recipe – it’s fast & easy!
Tomorrow, Saturday, October 2, is the 14th Annual Harvest Celebration Farm Tour in Clallam County. If you are on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State, this is a very fun event that gives you a glimpse of what the Peninsula has to offer. This year, nine different farms are opening their barn doors and throwing a party – hayrides, music, great food, farm animals & produce, demonstrations – a ton of down-home family fun.
We are incredibly blessed to have such an abundance of “real” food and local products available to us. It’s up to us to insure that availability. By supporting our local family farms, we are supporting our independence, our self-sufficiency, and our communities. Our health – and our quality of life – defined on so many levels – depends on it. So when you check out some of our local farms this weekend, take time to get to know our farming neighbors. We’re all in this together.
Hey! We are doing the Corny Happy Dance here at Barbolian Fields. YES! We are harvesting CORN! Amazing but true! Here are my 10 tried-and-true tips for growing corn in the Maritime Northwest, where summer heat can be fleeting, at best.
We have artichokes! Celebrate by making your own aioli – basically garlic, lemon juice, egg yolks, and olive oil blended together in a smooth mass – to transport yourself into some other realm. It is a night and day difference from the stuff you buy in a jar called mayonnaise. Artichokes – extraordinary thistle that they are – are the perfect partner to this excursion into a gastronomic swoon.
We delve deeper into the whys of a poor garlic crop this year, and although I highly suspect it was a combination of a long wet winter and spring, incessant strong winds, and too thick a mulch, I thought it might be a good idea to buy an NPK soil-test kit and see what the soil could tell me.
Think your garlic crop is a disaster? Look again. There might be something worth saving.
A little retail therapy helped offset the dreary weather and having to face a very poor garlic crop. Sad day. Looking for some bright spots amidst a lot of bulbs that rotted in the ground. Looking for reasons why. Even after over 30 years of growing this stuff, gardening is always such a learning process, huh.
In this post, I confess to having a serious case of scape envy, based on reports I am getting from others whose garlic plants are already producing those delectable scapes. Want to know the difference between scapes, scallions, and “green garlic” and how elephant garlic fits in to this picture? I’ll try to unravel some of that for you. And if you’re wondering what to do with your scapes, stay tuned for my upcoming cookbook!
The oil still gushing out of the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf should make us all aware that we are all part of the problem. Choosing to use hand tools instead of machinery is one small way we can cut back on our consumption. In this post, I describe how I sharpened an old sickle and cut down my green manure crop of a rye-clover-vetch mix (mostly rye) by hand. Let me tell you, it made me feel pretty darn powerful! Try it. You’ll like it. And so will our environment.
Early March: what’s in the garden? Chard, kale, collards, beets, leeks, early garlic & onions, lots of herbs, rhubarb — and then there are some of the bold & unusual: lovage, French sorrel, and cardoon — but don’t forget wild greens! Dandelions, nettles, mustards,chickweed, purslane, and others are nutritional powerhouses and are great to add to soups & salads before the rest of the garden gets going.
It is that time of year again: Seed Catalog Frenzy season! Nothing like planning a garden to beat the winter doldrums! Here are a dozen of seed companies that are guaranteed to wake hibernating gardeners. If you are looking for organic, heirloom, and/or unusual varieties of veggies, herbs, fruits, flowers, and shrubs — look no further!
A cold winter’s night beneath a blue moon: December 31 and it’s that time of year again: time to evaluate what worked and what didn’t in the garden. Once you complete this year-end ritual, you can dive into all those seed catalogs. But don’t skip this pre-garden planning step: a realistic evaluation now might prevent you from making crazy impulsive purchases based on glossy photos, mouth-watering descriptions, and a human tendency to forget the bad and remember the good. Or not.
Countdown to Christmas! Here are 20 ideas of easy, last-minute gifts you can make from your garden!
True confession: I simply have not had time to follow up on my last post. Furthermore, I am not afraid to admit that I still have zucchini on my countertop. Yes, I continue to sneak them into spaghetti sauces and muffins, but in reality, they have been pushed to the back to make room for … Read more
Need we say more?
Thank you for your patience while we are revising our site! We wanted to get a table in here listing all our 2009 varieties of garlic, and in the process, give the site a bright new look and a better forum for talking about sustainable living! Check back in soon! Thanks – Blythe
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you know we’re still waiting for this season called spring and it’s almost summer! The cold temps have delayed most crops – but I have to say, the lettuce, spinach, peas, mustards, parsley, potatoes, rhubarb, and garlic are thriving! (And so are the weeds!) Garlic scapes are a … Read more
(aka – “Value-Added Products”) We are very excited about the possibility of being able to offer some specialty products from our back acre, including powdered garlic, specialty horseradish sauces, mustards, and possibly a variety of dehydrated backpacking foods. We are currently making sure we can meet all USDA standards for processing and packaging. Stay tuned! … Read more
Yes! We sell & trade herbs: fresh, dried, and some live plants. This page is a list of what we grow in the way of medicinal and culinary herbs and dye plants. Contact us for current availability and to order.
Garlic scallions – or “green garlic” – those tender little morsels before they mature into a pungent clove-divided bulb, spell spring in so many ways! Yes you can eat the shoots! And those garlic cloves that didn’t quite overwinter and have started to sprout? You can still plant them! Even a small pot will do. Crowded is ok. In a couple of months (maybe less), you, too, can be eating your own scallions right from the garden.
Welcome to the launching pad for Barbolian Fields, where we specialize in garlic, herbs, dye plants, and various things made from all of those. Feel free to explore these pages to see what we’re up to! FIELD TRIPS & POST DRIPS to read our latest blog thoughts, see photos, and get updates on what’s going … Read more