Chelsea Green Blog
Farming & Homesteading
Weeding: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Weeds are the bane of every farmer and gardener’s existence. Before you go crusading against the weeds in your garden follow these tips and tricks!
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Capturing the Crunch: How to Harvest and Store Cucumbers
With these easy tips and tricks, you’ll be prepared to successfully harvest and store the cucumbers until they’re ready to eat.
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Beyond the Root Cellar: Storage Room Conditions
Success in long-term storage comes down to nailing the storage conditions, of which temperature and humidity are the most important. There’s also that critical period just after crops go into storage
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Growing Food in the Face of a Hotter, Drier Land
Climatic uncertainty has become the new normal. Farmers, gardeners and orchard-keepers are desperately seeking ways to adapt their food production to be more resilient in the face of such “global weirding.”
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Naturally Feeding Your Flock: Feed Poultry With Fresh Greens
Feeding your flock naturally wild wild greens comes with many benefits, from boosting poultry health to saving you money on feed bills.
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Don’t Bawk: The Wild and Wonderful Chicken Tractor
Aside from the sheer pleasure of telling your friends, straight-faced, that you maintain your garden using something called a “chicken tractor,” there are a slew of other benefits to working the land with a few of your animal friends. Getting rid of pests without chemicals, for one; letting them do the work of weeding and…
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Vegetable Farm Tips: The Keys to Efficient Veggie Production
If the idea of running a vegetable farm sounds daunting, you’re not alone. What can you do to simplify techniques and reduce expenses? Where do you even begin?
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Farming Against Nature
When you’re walking around the grocery store looking at the vegetables, it’s probably hard to imagine that a century ago there was twice the amount of options.
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Types of Tomatoes: Deciphering the Many Varieties
If you love tomatoes, you probably already know just how many varieties of these summertime staples there are. But do you know what makes each one unique?
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Embracing Sustainable Food Production: Integrating Trees and Crops
Adding the long game of trees to your system results in a deeper and more reliable, resilient and profound presence to your annual vegetable production.
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Foraging for Mushrooms: Gourmet Root Systems
For people who enjoy foraging for food in the wild, there are plenty of mushrooms to choose from — “ten thousand mushroom species to be considered on the North American continent alone”. But foraging for mushrooms should never be thought of as a game of chance. You need to know all the clues when it comes to identifying…
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How to Create the Perfect Bee Hive: A Home Worth Buzzing About
For all the beekeepers and future beekeepers out there, this one is for you! Your journey to successful beekeeping begins with constructing a suitable haven for honeybees, otherwise known as the bee hive. The following is an excerpt from Raising Resilient Bees by Eric and Joy McEwen. It has been adapted for the web. Bees…
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Sprout Today, Eat Healthy Tomorrow
If you’re ready to start growing a portion of your own food, but you aren’t quite ready for something that requires a big time commitment or a lot of effort, this is a good place to start. Sprouts are easy to cultivate, mature very quickly, can be used in a variety of delicious dishes, and…
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Silvopasture: What in the world is it?
Have you heard of silvopasture? This system of managing grazing animals is an ancient practice that integrates trees and pasture into a single system for raising livestock. These systems are managed for both forest products and forage, providing short-and long-term income sources in a mutually beneficial way for healthier animals, better soil, less pest control and mowing, and…
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Oxeye Daisy: A Plant for the Pollinators
Oxeye daisies are one of the most important plants for pollinators including beetles, ants, and moths that use oxeye daisies as a source of pollen and nectar. Instead of thinking about removing a plant like oxeye daisy, consider how you can improve the fertility and diversity of habitat resources in your home landscape, garden, or…
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Reaping the Harvest: Tools for the Harvest
So you want to start reaping your harvest, but you’re not sure where to start? Learn how to break down the options of harvesting tools!
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Sprouted Amaranth Alegria Energy Bars
One simple and healthy way to breathe life back into your diet is by sprouting your own seeds. You can make nutrient-rich sprouts from all kinds of edible seeds right in your own kitchen. Sprouts are incredibly versatile too! You can make chickpea sprout hummus, salads, or in this case: energy bars! The following is…
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A Guide to Growing Oyster Mushrooms Indoors
What’s so great about oyster mushrooms? First, you can add them to the list of foods that can be grown indoors! They are tasty, easy to grow, multiply fast, and they love a variety of substrates, making oyster mushrooms the premium choice. The following is an excerpt from Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R. J.…
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Managing Chicken Manure: The Joys of Deep Litter
Ever heard the phrase, “always follow your nose?” As it turns out, this is a good rule of thumb when it comes to chicken manure. Composting chicken manure in deep litter helps build better chicken health, reduce labor, and retain most of the nutrients for your garden. The following is an excerpt from The Small-Scale Poultry…
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Good Grazing Makes for Healthy Pastures, People, and Planet
In her book, The Art of Science and Grazing, nationally known grazing consultant Sarah Flack identifies the key principles and practices necessary for farmers to design, and manage, successful grazing systems. This book is an essential guide for ruminant farmers who want to crate grazing systems that meet the needs of their livestock, pasture plants,…
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Abundant Kudzu: Uncovering the Many Uses
This long-lived perennial legume is used for forage and erosion control. Kudzu is edible with many medicinal uses and other applications. Pollinators of all kinds love its prodigious lavender blooms!
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How to Start Seedlings in a Cold Frame: Gardening Tips from Eliot Coleman
Are you ready to get a jump-start on the gardening season? With a cold frame, you can get started now. A cold frame harnesses the sun’s heat before it’s warm enough to let unprotected seedlings growing outside. Essentially, it consists of a garden bed surrounded by an angled frame and covered with a pane of…
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Beyond the Maple: Birch & Walnut Syrups
Move aside, maple! We have two new syrups to add to the table. Read on for insights on tapping, selling, and eating syrup from walnut & birch trees.
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Why Modern Wheat Is Making Us Sick
Why is modern wheat making us sick? That’s the question posed by author Eli Rogosa in Restoring Heritage Grains. Wheat is the most widely grown crop on our planet, yet industrial breeders have transformed this ancient staff of life into a commodity of yield and profit—witness the increase in gluten intolerance and ‘wheat belly’. Modern…
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Laying Down Cover Crops in 7 Steps
Want to make the most of the slow gardening season? Lay cover crops to improve the health of your soil and plants! The following is an excerpt from The Celestial Garden by Jane Hawley Stevens. It has been adapted for the web. Benefits of Cover Crops Cover cropping is a management practice that benefits the…
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