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Saturday 15 May 2010

Summer garden planting

This year, we have the chance to do what we were too late for last year. That is the May planting. In the southern Appalachian region, early to mid-May is the time when all the below-50 degree weather is behind us. This year, we’ve added a fourth 4X8 garden bed to our yard to make room [...]

Sunday 04 Apr 2010

Spring Planting in the Foodscout Garden

Winter is finally over! The sun has been out and we haven’t seen sub-freezing temperatures in at least a week. Time to plant our early spring vegetables! Here’s what’s happening in our southern Appalachian area garden. If you live in a different climate, like Arizona for instance, you will need to look at what grows [...]

Tuesday 09 Mar 2010

At the end of a long winter, Vitamin D is in the spotlight

Vitamin D, not technically a vitamin at all, is created in our bodies when the sun hits our skin. It’s good to see that after a cold grey winter like this one, some attention is being paid to this important nutrient. Here are a couple of interesting articles: Vitamin D deficiency is why you get flu [...]

Sunday 20 Dec 2009

Mini Greenhouse Tent Saves Greens From Snow Storm

About a foot of snow fell this weekend in Asheville. Power was out for 15 hours, stores and restaurants were closed, and cars were snowed in for days. But we had fresh garden greens this weekend from our garden. Our StarterHouse portable greenhouse by FlowerHouse arrived just in time. We’ve had it up for over a [...]

Friday 18 Dec 2009

Article: That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy

We’ve been filtering our water for years, but after doing more research on water, decided to switch to bottled distilled water. Tap water is so bad these days that filtering it doesn’t get all the chemicals out. Flouride, in particular, was the main impetus for the switch. That’s not to say that filtering your tap [...]

Wednesday 25 Nov 2009

Article: Exploring a Low-Acid Diet for Bone Health

This isn’t news in some health-conscious circles, but it’s wonderful to see it addressed so prominently in the New York Times. This article challenges the idea, long touted by the dairy industry, that milk is beneficial in combating osteoporosis. It goes even further and suggests that maybe it is part of the problem. The science of [...]

Sunday 25 Oct 2009

Harvesting Unripe Peppers

We planted our red sweet peppers quite a bit late in the season. My plants produced a lot of peppers but did not have a chance to fully ripen before the first frost came and withered all the leaves. My gardening advisor suggested we go ahead and harvest the peppers, since they were already pretty large. Definitely, [...]

Sunday 18 Oct 2009

Tiny Urban Gardens Wherever They Will Fit

I spend a lot of time walking around my neighborhood. I used to enjoy the pretty landscaping, but over the past year or so, a significant change has happened. More and more neighbors are turning their yards into vegetable gardens; finding any patch of earth that gets sunlight and planting food. This is an older neighborhood [...]

Saturday 03 Oct 2009

Gardening and Farming on Rooftops in the big cities

Even in the Big Apple, residents are finding ways to garden. One resident has even created a 6,000 square foot commercial organic farm, on a rooftop in Brooklyn. Check out the video here. Learn more about Rooftop Farms, in Brooklyn NY.

Saturday 26 Sep 2009

Cabbage Worms – Importance of Daily Garden Checks

I was told when I put in my garden to check it every single day for damaging insects and slugs. I enjoy my morning (and afternoon) visits to my garden so much that it was never a problem to follow through on that. But with these crazy rain storms we’ve been having here in Western [...]

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