Have you read a banned book today?

This week is Banned Book Week, which, according to the American Library Association, “highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.” Despite freedom of expression being clearly provided for in the Bill of [...]

Die, evil vermin!

Autumn at our house almost always means harvest, and food preservation typically follows. Unfortunately, along with the boxes of tomatoes, buckets of garlic, and oodles of other fruits & veggies come the fruit flies. I can tolerate a couple of flies, but when they reach critical mass, I start exclaiming things like “Die, evil vermin” [...]

Easy party favors: home-made play dough

This weekend, my son celebrated his fifth birthday (sniff, sniff) and each of his friends went home with a little bag of play dough as a party favor. The play dough was a much bigger hit than the clay pots and basil seeds I send kids home with last year, and it was even easier [...]

In search of the perfect pancake

Pancakes were probably the first food I learned to make from scratch. In part because my sister has the best darned “Griddle Cake” recipe I’d ever tasted, and in part because I love cooked breakfast–especially when it can include peanut butter and chocolate chips– I became obsessed with pancakes. Now that I have children of [...]

End of season tomato primer

If there’s one thing tomato-growers in colder climates fear, it’s early frost that strikes with lots of green fruit still on the vine. According to the Purdue Cooperative Extension, optimal ripening temperature is between 68-77, and it hasn’t been getting nearly that warm here this last week, and the nighttime temperatures just keep on dropping, [...]

Make it From Scratch – Home-Canned Bloody Mary Mix

When the garden’s bountiful tomato crop dove-tailed with one of our traditional Friday Afternoon Club gatherings, I decided to get creative in the kitchen. I skimmed through several recipes until I found one that met my requirements for a good bloody mary, including: Horseradish & hot sauce – if it ain’t spicy, I don’t want [...]

Confessions of a Dirty Girl

I am a dirty girl. This time of year, garden dirt finds a permanent home under my nails, and I’d much rather be outside with the kids than inside cleaning. It’s not that I don’t want a clean house, it’s just that I’d rather do anything (including reorganizing my file cabinet, pulling weeds, or reading [...]

Getting started with garlic

Now that we’re all duly depressed over the upcoming frost, it’s time to start focusing on what the avid gardener can do to beat the fall/winter blues. As the powdery mildew overtakes the squash and the last of the harvest trickles in, I start looking to next year’s harvest and the first thing I do [...]

Three tips when frost threatens

Here in Zone 5, September brings with it the perennial question: When will the first frost strike? If Accuweather is, well, accurate, this year our first frost in Lyons may well be Friday night, with temps predicted to dip to 31. Although that’s not a “hard frost” (when temps stay at or below 28 degrees [...]

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Just experienced a huge potato failure over at our community garden plot. The largest potatoes were the size of... http://fb.me/ETq9R5rw 2 weeks ago
I finally got my fall carrots in. I always try to get them in during July and it's always August before they're... http://fb.me/CVsElniB 1 month ago
I just realized that my garlic is sitting outside drying...in the rain. Crap! 1 month ago
Just brought home a huge haul from the Lyons Farmette! Onions, baby carrots, fennel, broccoli, lettuce, and beets!... http://fb.me/FureHtvY 1 month ago
It's time to harvest garlic if you haven't already. But be forewarned--our house smells strongly of garlic as we... http://fb.me/FnFitHUc 1 month ago

Terminal Verbosity

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