Spill the Beans: Is it spring yet?
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: Rescue me
If I’m going to rescue animals, I need to make sure I can do an incredible job of taking care of them. Read More
Spill the Beans: Waiting for water
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: Ferment it
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: The big show
The work is never done. At least not my work, and probably not yours, either. But it is especially true on a farm at this time of the year. Read More
Spill the Beans: Canned
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: A walk in the woods
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: So now what? (with recipes)
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the beans: The garden explosion
With the hot weather and some rain, everything has just taken off. This is the magic time of gardening. Everything looks lush and perfect. Read More
Spill the Beans: Starting all over
The sourdough recipe in the book is simple. First you make the starter, feed it regularly and when it’s ready (seriously, the worst words you can possibly hear when you have no idea what that even means), you make the bread. Sounds easy, right? The first loaf turned out alright. It was small, but utterly delicious. At the time, I found the feeding of the starter tedious and the making of the bread took all day. And who has time for that? I wasn’t smitten like people seemed to be. Read More
Spill the Beans: Going to the dogs
When you move to the country, you need a dog. You need a dog to let you know that there might be something lurking in the bushes down by the creek, which they had better investigate. You need a dog to keep the deer out of the garden and the raccoons out of the garage. You need a dog to alert you that a strange vehicle is on the yard. You need a dog to keep you company when you’re working in the garden all day, so you don’t appear to be talking to yourself. Read More
Spill the Beans: Howdy neighbour!
Last weekend, our neighbours asked us to chore their animals while they were away. This is another thing that neighbours do. We’ll be away this summer and we’ll need someone to check up on, feed and water our chickens. And likely, it will be one of our neighbours either repaying a favour or hoping that we’ll help them out somewhere down the road. Read More
Spill the Beans: What grows
Everything just needs to grow. And if will power was enough to grow veggies, you can be sure I’d have the nicest veggies around. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way. Read More
Spill the Beans: The birds and the bees
So, we did get bees. And they have been VERY busy. And I have learned so much but still have so many questions. Read More
Spill the Beans: Killing frost
It is hard to lose plants. You plant, water, weed. You prepare the beds so they’ll grow strong and produce much food for your family (and the army for whom I am, apparently, currently growing my garden). But sometimes, despite your best efforts, the plants still die or get mowed over. Or freeze. Read More
Spill the Beans: The greenhouse is a dangerous place
So I was just going to “pop” in to the other greenhouse, that’s sort of on my way home from work. And this is how it goes. There’s something about all of those lovely green plants and cases full of seeds that I just can’t resist. All of that growing potential to feed SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Read More