I really love January. The bitter cold, the winds, the snow–there’s something so magical about being out in a snowstorm. Where most people lament for the sun and hot summer months, I welcome all of the cold, the wind, the …
January Garden Updates
Gardening & Homesteading
Growing Amaranth for Food and Beauty
Amaranth is a wonderful plant to grow for a variety of purposes. First of all, many varieties of amaranth are absolutely beautiful. I grew Hopi Red Dye Amaranth this year, and as you can see from the photos, its stunning.The …
Reducing Your Impact on the Planet: Ten Tips to Get Started
As we quickly approach the most consumptive season of the year, I wanted to post about ways that you can reduce your overall impact on the planet. I think its critically important that we, as druids and other earth-centered spiritual …
Gardening into December: Hoop House Updates, Chickens, Composting, and More!
I wanted to post another update about the progress of the hoop houses and other gardening activities in mid-November in my Zone 6 climate in South East Michigan. As I wrote about in earlier blog posts, I have been experimenting …
Moving Sustainability from the Fringe to the Mainstream: The Case of One University
One of the greatest challenges we, as a culture, face is transitioning to sustainable practices and making those practices mainstream rather than fringe activities. In some parts of the country, even access to local foods is not possible; in others, …
Chickens and Sustainability
Chickens as part of a sustainable system. Raising chickens has become an activity of growing importance within permaculture/sustainability movements. Most backyard chicken owners raise their birds for eggs, meat, companionship, manure, happiness, and natural pest control. Chickens can form one …
Raised Garden Beds from Salvaged/Found Materials
A lot of gardeners today use the raised bed method to grow plants. I have been doing pseudo-raised beds in the garden for two years now. The raised beds are higher than the ground (since my local dirt is deficient …
Seed Saving 101: Spinach & Lettuce Seed Saving
Before Monstanto, before Walmart, and before any modern hybrid seeds available in convenient packets, humans saved seeds from season to season. This brought us closer to our land, to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, and to our own …
Garden Updates – July 2012
Hello everyone! Its been a while since I posted actual updates from the garden. So here are some new photos! We have had very little rain in the last two months, so I’ve had to water a bit. The heat …
Mushroom Gardens
If there is one thing that’s pretty difficult to find locally, I’ve found it to be mushrooms. Once when I was at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s market (which is about an hour and 15 min drive for me, so I …
Tree Planting Ritual – Druid / OBOD Style
This is a simple tree-planting ritual that I wrote for our grove’s upcoming Beltane celebration this weekend. Our grove is only partially wooded currently–we will be planting about 15 new trees around the grove to help fill it in. …
Seed Saving, Heirloom Seeds, and Sustainability
When I started patio gardening some years ago, I didn’t really know a lot about seeds. Like most Americans, I had simply gone to the store, bought a packet of seeds (or a group of plants already started from a …
Sheet Mulching / Lasagnia Gardening – Instructions and Experiences
Last year, I reported that I started my garden beds using a Sheet Mulching (aka Lasagnia Gardening) approach that I found in Gaia’s Garden and select places online, such as here, here and here. A year later, and I’d like …
Garden Plans and Updates
I have been busy planting seeds so that after our last frost date (May 15th) these new little plants can go into the ground. Seeds contain so much potential–its amazing to watch them grow and get stronger each day as …
Fall Leaves and the Druidic Garden: Leaves as Compost and Mulch
With the passing of Samhain, most of the leaves here in Michigan are now off the trees. As I bike through my neighborhood or visit surrounding communities, I am always amazed to see people bagging up all of those leaves …
Holy Shit.
“Holy shit” or “holy crap” is generally used in a derogatory manner to indicate surprise or indicate that something is very bad. The etymology of the phrase is unknown, but the Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the term “shit” …