Chelsea Green Blog
Community Resilience
DIY Weekend: Build a Wood-Fired Oven at Home
Do you have a love affair with wood-fired pizza? Can’t resist a fresh from the oven loaf of bread? Are always looking for another DIY project? If you said yes, then one’s for you! Richard Miscovich, bread expert and wood-fired oven builder, offers a few useful tips and general masonry guidelines to help you get…
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Recipe: Summer Herb Flower Vinegar
Olivia’s mom, Lola, is famous for her potato salad that seems so simple, but has a certain je ne sais quoi—the secret ingredient: chive-flower-infused vinegar. She recalls, “As a child I was enchanted by the apothecary bottles lined up on our kitchen shelves, stuffed with purple pompoms—I just knew there was magic happening inside.” By…
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Community Food Forests in Action
Alright. We’ve covered the basics of what a community food forest is, how to plan one, and which approach is best. Now it’s time to see some in action! Keep reading to learn more about some of the pioneers of the food forest movement. The following excerpt is from The Community Food Forest Handbook by Catherine Bukowski…
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Planning a Community Food Forest
As Benjamin Franklin stated, “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” A good community food forest will always require robust planning but don’t let that scare you! By breaking down the work into the following five project management phases, you not only establish an initial plan you’ve also developed a dynamic system to allow…
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Agroforestry Versus Permaculture: Which Approach to Use for a Community Food Forest
Ok, so we’ve gone over some basics of community food forests: Now it’s time to figure out how to plan one. There are two schools of thought on the best approach to building a community food forest: agroforestry or permaculture. The former offers a science-based approach while the latter incorporates elements of social design. Both work…
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What is a Community Food Forest?
The recent rise of community food forests and similar projects have come at an imperative time. More than 80 percent of the US population now resides in urban areas. This number is projected to rise in the next few decades. Not only can food forests provide a local source of food they can also serve…
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Our Favorite Summer Reads
Wondering what to read this summer? Don’t worry, we have you covered! Grab your towel and claim the best pool chair or relax at your homestead with one of these perfect summer reads. Whether its nature reads, to healing your gut, everything wild, or inspirational books you’ll have your nose in a book all summer long…
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How to Cook the Perfect, Tender, Grass Fed Steak
Memorial Day is one of America’s first “BBQ Holidays” of the year. It’s finally warm enough to grill outside in most of the country, and almost everyone has the day off to bask in the glory of the coming summer. Treat your tastebuds to an ethical feast: grill up some grass fed steak this year!…
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Are you Team Duck or Team Chicken?
Thinking about adding a laying flock to your backyard, but having trouble deciding between ducks and chickens? Agonize no more. Carol Deppe (The Tao of Vegetable Gardening, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) has the lowdown on which type of poultry might be right for you. Deppe is a duck-lover at heart. In the following excerpt…
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The Perfect Mix: All Purpose Potting Soil Recipe
Potting Soil Annual plants require an early start to bear fruit in the short growing season of New England. The planting medium, daylight length, and temperature conditions are crucial factors for a healthy nursery of seedlings. In an attempt to localize our annual production we start seedlings on-site. This production requires specific timing and appropriate…
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9 Things to Consider When Building Your Own Greenhouse
Daydreaming of extending your growing season and building your very own year-round greenhouse? It’s easier, more affordable, and will provide you and your family with more food than you might think — thanks to one of North America’s most accomplished permaculture designers, Jerome Osentowski. In his groundbreaking book, The Forest Garden Greenhouse, Osentowski provides growers of all skill levels in-depth…
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The Ultimate Guide to Sheet Mulching
Sheet mulching is a layered mulch system that nurtures the soil. You start with a biodegradable weed barrier like cardboard, and from there build a thick, layered substrate for your garden with compost and mulch. As the materials break down, worms move in, softening the soil below, and creating a healthy, aerated planting bed where…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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