All Blog Posts (445)

Celt's Garden - Reverse Engineering Hot Sauce

It's a good year to make your own condiments. Not because the peppers and pickling cukes are overflowing, in fact just the opposite. A month of cold and rain in early summer delayed planting the summer garden. Gardeners have been telling me, with cautious optimism, that their tomatoes are finally fruiting. Folks seem a bit on edge, hoping for a warm September and the city water supply holding through the summer.

Your own condiments are always better, cheaper, and more wonderful. They… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on July 18, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Celt's Garden - Favas and Everson Farm Stands

The green fava beans are swelling in their pods. Ah, shelly fava beans simmered with garlic scapes or green garlic. Harvest the bottom favas first. If you leave them, they will turn into dry beans, but it will take until late August. As they age, the beans first develop a tough outer skin, which slides off after cooking. Then they harden into dry beans. The pods dry and shatter, so you want to get your favas in as soon as the beans are hard and let them finish drying under cover. Then you can… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on July 12, 2010 at 6:00pm — No Comments

Celt's Garden - Start with a Live Chicken (Rated NV)

That would be rated NV for No Vegans. No 12 year old girls either, who are shocked, just shocked, to find out that meat comes from DEAD ANIMALS and spend the next ten years living on spaghetti with plain Marinara sauce and Cheetos. Vegans, perhaps you would like to check out "That French Feeling" which is a nice earlier post about growing herbs.

To go from live chicken to dead chicken, first you have to catch the chicken. This can be tricky, as chickens are telepathic about being… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on July 3, 2010 at 10:00pm — 1 Comment

Celt's Garden - Cheap Garlic Tricks

It's time to go out and snap off those cute curly garlic scapes. You want the plant to be frustrated in its reproductive mission and direct its photosynthesis into making a bulb. The bulb stores energy for another try next year, unless you get there first and put it into the spaghetti. The scapes have become quite the high priced delicacy, a side benefit of growing your own. It's also time to hill up the potatoes. This means burying the stems so that the plant will grow more tubers. Otherwise,… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on June 24, 2010 at 12:00pm — 4 Comments

Celt's Garden - Moo Juice Season

"Wow, that is really good. That tastes so creamy!" "Now, that tastes like the milk we used to get out of the tank back on the dairy farm." Jackie's Jersey milk got raves from my taste test panel. Jackie's Jerseys (Terra Organica, Coop, Sumas IGA) is a dairy farm with 18 cows, all Jerseys. Eighteen cows is too many to be a hobby and nowhere near enough for a conventional dairy. The normal conventional dairy in Whatcom county has 500 - 600 cows. In California, dairies can have 10,000… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on June 21, 2010 at 9:30am — No Comments

Need some good news for a change?

Hey-

If you are like me, after you read or watch the news, you are downright depressed. But there are actually some very positive and wonderful things happening in the world- the media just finds they don't garner the same attention and readership. I actually read the other day that reading some bad news makes our brain release a tiny bit of dopamine, so it can even be addictive!

I've decided to post some good news as often as I can, and if it brightens someone's…

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Added by Kate Clark on June 12, 2010 at 7:18pm — 14 Comments

Celt's Garden - Crunch Time in the Garden

The summer garden planting time is upon us, and a right good trick it is. In between the downpours, it's time to rush out and plant tomatoes, peppers, basil, summer and winter squashes, sweet corn, beans and cucumbers. Those brave and blessed with a good microclimate may try some northern adapted melons. Russian Collective Farm Woman melon is my choice this year. Last year, I planted a French heirloom cantaloupe thingy and got a half dozen drippingly sweet softball sized melons. The full force… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on June 10, 2010 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Permaculture Design Course starting next weekend (June 14th)

Hi everyone. I am really excited about our two week intensive Permaculture Design Course at Feral Farm. Imagine camping at a beautiful, naturally managed farm on the Sauk River for 2 weeks, learning how to survive and live sustainably. Students will work on how to manage our waste and generate electricity onsite, as well as coming up with a comprehensive design and… Continue

Added by David Zhang on June 3, 2010 at 6:14pm — No Comments

Celt's Garden - Getting Real About Winter Gardening

Just as a filthy cold spring is delaying planting the summer garden, it's time to get ready to plant your winter garden. The winter garden feeds you, your family, and possibly your laid off friends through next fall, winter and spring with fresh delicious veg. That eight months of food you grow yourself provides fresh food when it is most expensive and most likely to be imported from California, Mexico, China and Chile. Personally, I wish Chile all the best in a changing world, but tying a… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on May 28, 2010 at 6:33pm — 8 Comments

scratch and peck...

http://scratchandpeck.com/index.php

check it out! local, organic, chicken feed and soon other animal feed too!

Great news. visit the web site and contacy them directly with and questions.

Added by Kelcey Bates on May 27, 2010 at 11:20am — 1 Comment

Radical Democracy

Greetings friends,

Over the weekend I had the intriguing opportunity to take part in a Radical Democracy seminar. It was exciting, educational, and somewhat frightening - much like the experiences I usually find through Transition!

I would summarize the message of the seminar thusly:

Our country's foundational documents proclaim Democracy - power in the people, but our legal history has instead given the power to…

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Added by Brian Carpenter on May 26, 2010 at 4:52pm — 2 Comments

Childhood deaths, often preventable, US improving much slower than other wealthy nations

Nothing is sadder than and child's death, for a parent or for a society. So why is it that they are so invisible to us in the US?

A recent review of childhood deaths shows that the number of deaths among children less than 5 will drop below 8 million for the first time in 2010. In 1990 there were 11.9 million deaths in this group. The decline in the US is slower than all other wealthy nations, it is on a par with Kazakhstan and Angola (really and literally) with 6.7… Continue

Added by Frank James on May 25, 2010 at 12:21am — 3 Comments

Celt's Garden - Eating to Scale

A few years ago, just as the local food movement was popping on to the radar, Joel Salatin, farmer and writer, wrote a passionate book titled, "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal". Salatin's point is that a half century of consolidation, increasingly large food processors and "eliminating the middleman" has eliminated the middleman. Nearly the entire local food processing and distribution system has gone out of business or been buried in regulations. In some cases, the regulations are aimed at… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on May 22, 2010 at 10:57am — 2 Comments

Garden-Servant Update: fertility, nourishment, & water in temperate climate mid-spring

There comes a time in mid spring in the edible forest garden, when the impulse to reproduce is strong among plants, insects, & animals. I often witness this in May, just before the main roses & peonies bloom, and just as many of the fruiting trees & shrubs have gone from blossoms, to tiny fruits (smaller than peas). During this time I sense a high need for water & nourishment from many plants all at the same time.…

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Added by Heather K on May 18, 2010 at 2:30pm — 2 Comments

Recommended Audio: To the Best of Our Knowledge

To the Best of Our Knowledge radio: "Sacred Nature"

Bill McKibben lays out a model of how to survive on our changed planet: think small and local. Kurt Hoelting set out to spend a year living within 60 miles of his home (Whidbey Island). Gordon Hempton is one of the world's leading audio ecologists (Olympic Penninsula).… Continue

Added by David MacLeod on May 9, 2010 at 10:36pm — No Comments

Celt's Garden - Change the World, One Tomato at a Time

As you buzz about happily planning your garden, give thought where your seeds and starts come from. If you are going to the effort of growing your own, grow the good stuff. No point in working that hard for the same tasteless cardboard tomatoes you can buy in the supermarket. When you buy seeds and starts, look for heirloom varieties. Heirloom seeds are open pollinated seeds that have been passed on for years, sometimes decades or centuries. Heirloom and open pollinated seeds can be saved…

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Added by Celt M. Schira on May 7, 2010 at 9:00am — 2 Comments

Social Networks and Effecting Transition Movement Action

* * * Many of us are interested in accurate information on the ning-com-corporation and their ethical & privacy policies. Please share if you have found something helpful. * * *.

quote: "There is a lot of Transition Movement action going on in social networks all over the world. This is great; keep it up (as long as it's not detracting from…

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Added by Heather K on May 6, 2010 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

Bill McKibbon: Spill Baby Spill?

Spill Baby Spill?

by Bill McKibbon, 350.org

Dear friends,

The oil spreading across the Gulf is a test, pure and simple.

Think of its twisted outline as a Rorschach ink blot for a society--maybe for a whole civilization. Will we respond in ways deep enough to matter? Or will we see nothing wrong in the devastating

images of the oil slick, and continue on this path of…

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Added by David MacLeod on May 1, 2010 at 10:22pm — No Comments

Fri. April 30, 2010

Hey everyone! I have no idea if anyone will actually read this, but here it is.

Here at Western, we just finished up with our hectic, educational, and incredibly fun earth week which was wittingly dubbed "Earth Days" to support the idea that every day is Earth Day. Many months of planning preceeded the week. Speakers were booked, bands were paid, rooms were reserved, publicity was printed, and ideas flew around the Environmental Center like wildfire. VU 424 (our office) was a…

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Added by Amy Holm on April 30, 2010 at 1:05pm — 3 Comments

Celt's Garden - Jam Session

Jam season is coming sooner than we think. We seem to be having an early spring - when it isn't winter again. In the usual scheme of things, strawberries arrive in June, followed by the early raspberries, cherries, blueberries, plums, apricots, peaches, figs, blackberries, fall raspberries and the rare treasures, local Lynden Blue and Madeline Angevine grapes. Apples ripen from June to October, depending on the variety. Where to start?

The first step is to plan. How many people are you… Continue

Added by Celt M. Schira on April 28, 2010 at 11:30pm — 2 Comments