Chelsea Green Blog
Community Resilience
Bubbling Waters: Raspberry and Blueberry Soda
Now fermentation fans and home brewers can rediscover these “primitive” drinks and their unique flavors in The Wildcrafting Brewer. You’ll be surprised at how easy making your own natural drinks can be! One of the best ways to begin brewing is by dipping your toes in the bubbling waters of homemade soda. Mountain raspberry and blueberry soda…
Read More
New Projects Fuel Sustainability at Chelsea Green
Article by Alex Green. Originally posted on Publishers Weekly. Follow them on Twitter @PublishersWkly and Facebook at @PubWeekly From the content of its books to the paper it prints on, Chelsea Green Publishing is known for its focus on sustainability. But if that word suggests that operations at the Vermont-based publishing house move at a modest…
Read More
Books to Curl up with this Winter!
William Wordsworth was right when he said, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” Nevertheless, the cold, dark days of winter can still get the best of even Nature’s most tenderhearted admirer. What’s one to do? We here at Chelsea Green have concocted the perfect cabin fever remedy with our suggested winter reading…
Read More
3 Steps to Start Your Plants Off Right
How you handle your seeds and your practices around seeding is your first chance to get your plants off to a good start and help them achieve their full potential. Ben and Penny Hewitt, authors of The Nourishing Homestead, have developed a three-step process which starts with inoculating the seeds, then sowing them in high-quality…
Read More
Pass the Walnut Syrup?
Everyone knows and loves maple syrup, and in some states (like Chelsea Green’s home state of Vermont), it’s big business. However, it’s a widespread myth that maples are the only trees that can be tapped to produce sap, according to Michael Farrell, sugarmaker and director of Cornell University’s Uihlein Forest. Sap can also be collected…
Read More
Recipe: Winter Root Veggie Potpie
If you have a winter CSA share, then you’re probably poking around for some new ways to use up those winter root veggies. Straight from his cookbook Black Trumpet, Chef Evan Mallett suggests this Winter Root Veggie Potpie. And, we couldn’t agree more. This recipe is just a small selection of the more than 250…
Read More
This cake is so simple and yet so good: Medlar Cream Cake
If you’re looking for a simple cake to serve guests, try this medlar cream cake. What’s a medlar? The fruit of the medlar tree, Mespilus germanica, tastes like lightly spiced apple butter scooped soft right out of the russeted skin. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in California has a small but significant collection of…
Read More
Grow a Year-Round Indoor Salad Garden, even in winter
Just because the temperatures have started to drop doesn’t mean you have to live without fresh greens until Spring. As the weather gets colder and seasonal produce only means root vegetables, we begin to dream about fresh greens and colorful salads. Without a greenhouse or expensive equipment, it’s hard to imagine a reality in which…
Read More
New French edition of The Resilient Farm and Homestead available
Great news for French-speaking fans of Ben Falk’s The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach. The French language translation is now available from Imagine Un Colibri, from French booksellers, and on Amazon.fr. Falk’s book is a technical manual that details the strategies he and his team have developed for…
Read More
How to Make Biochar
Doing some spring cleaning around your property? By making biochar from brush and other hard-to-compost organic material, you can improve soil—it enhances nutrient availability and also enables soil to retain nutrients longer. This excerpt from The New Farmer’s Almanac, Volume 3, explains how to get started. To make biochar right in your garden, start by…
Read More
Generosity as Activism, and Other Homesteading Principles to Live By
“Like everyone I know, we occasionally find ourselves faced with a decision to which there is no obvious answer,” says Ben Hewitt, coauthor of The Nourishing Homestead. “Do we borrow money to build a bigger barn, or do we keep getting by with what we have? Do we spend our meager savings on trees and…
Read More
Prepare! Keep a Grab-n-Go Survival Kit Handy
Are you prepared in the event of a sudden emergency? Blizzard, earthquake, insurrection after the inauguration? We know a lot of people are wondering what’s coming next in the US, as well as the world, given terrorism, politics, and global warming, among other threats. In this excerpt from When Technology Fails, a popular book on…
Read More
Is My Broth (or Stock) Bad?
Are you planning to start the GAPS diet or any other diet aimed at boosting gut health this year? If so, chances are that stocks and broths are critical components. Even if you’re not changing the way you eat, but you often have pots of aromatic goodness bubbling on your stove, you may have wondered,…
Read More
In Remembrance: Toby Hemenway
It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Toby Hemenway, a beloved teacher, author, and permaculturalist. In October of 2015, Toby was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Despite treatment that seemed to be working, the cancer returned this fall, and eventually Toby signed up for home hospice on December 16, 2016. He died…
Read More
A Bloggin' We Shall Go: Your Favorite Blog Posts from 2016
Ah, 2016 – where did the time fly? It seems like only earlier this year we were excited about designing swales and getting to know more about no-till farming, and we ended up focusing on the heart, ketogenic diets and seeking a bio-abundant future. While the top 7 blog posts of the year don’t exactly…
Read More
Is Modern Wheat Making us Fat?
Author Eli Rogosa explains why modern wheat is a possible source of our growing obesity problem. In Restoring Heritage Grains, Rogosa of the Heritage Grain Conservancy, invites readers to restore forgotten wheats such as gluten-safe einkorn that nourished the first Neolithic farmers, emmer—the grain of ancient Israel, Egypt, and Rome that is perfect for pasta…
Read More
Yes, America We Can Make It … Really
Uncertainty got you down? The political world may seem like it’s crumbling around us, but this we know: We can make it, America. Literally, we can make things. Houses. Gardens. Food. Below we’ve selected some of our classic how-to and DIY books (and some new favorites) to help you sustain your self, family, and community.…
Read More
Chelsea Green on Instagram: Our Most Popular Photos of 2016
What a year for Chelsea Green on Instagram! We began the year with 500 followers and are now fast approaching 4,000 photo-loving brewers, gardeners, cheesemakers, permaculturists, foodies, seed-savers, homesteaders, foragers, and more. Our most popular posts of 2016 say a lot about what makes you happy: mushrooms, innovative garden designs and techniques, tiny cabins, and…
Read More
Slack and Taut: Defining a System's Resilience
A resilient future (or a resilient present, for that matter) needs to be slack, not taut. What do we mean? Core to the concept of a Lean Economy is understanding the need to move toward a “slack” market rather than one that is “taut.” When British economist David Fleming died unexpectedly in 2010, he left…
Read More
What's a Carbon Sink?
World leaders met in Marrakech this month as part of COP22, to discuss the next steps to reducing global climate emissions. One of the solutions being discussed is carbon farming. Author Eric Toensmeier participated in COP22, in part, because he literally wrote a book on it. First off – what is carbon farming? It’s a…
Read More
Get Ready, Get Resilient
Are you resilient? How about we put your answer to the test, literally. Now, we know that assessment is always an important, albeit imperfect, subjective, and incomplete tool. In order to understand one’s skill in living a resilient lifestyle, Ben Falk, author of the award-winning The Resilient Farm and Homestead, developed the following assessment tool.…
Read MoreThe Seven-Point Protocol for a Lean Economy
In the future, what will our local economies look like? How will they function if there is little, to no, state or national support? The late David Fleming envisioned a post-capitalistic society that we could call “deep local” — in which all needs are met at the local level — from income to social capital…
Read More
The 20 Rules of Slow Democracy
Now, more than ever we need democracy. Why not make it Slow Democracy? Reconnecting with the sources of decisions that affect us, and with the processes of democracy itself, is at the heart of 21st-century sustainable communities — and with the most recent election cycle, a reinvigoration of local democracy will become more important than…
Read More
Success: Make the Intense Commitment, Plod On
How would you define “success”? To find out the answer to this question we meandered through David Fleming’s Lean Logic. A dictionary unlike any other, Lean Logic encourages readers to actively and intellectually engage with its entries. These entries are often cross-referenced so that you can delve more deeply into how various words, or concepts,…
Read More
We are Farmily: Everyday Life on Sole Food Street Farm
Food is the medium. The message is nourishment in its most elemental and spiritual form. That’s how author Michael Ableman sees the role of Sole Food Street Farm and the food it sells to markets, restaurants, and individuals. In the following excerpt from his new book, Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the…
Read More