Lessons from the 2018 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

...ticket contest winner (who gave us the most beautiful basket of home grown fruits and preserves ever–thank you Donna!) came to the same conclusion. We’ve hired a designer, which is why our backyard looks like a strip mine: A crew took out an ugly concrete patio last week and has been digging down to lower the level of the new patio they will install. The old patio was above the level of the sill plate and was causing the back part of the house to...

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061 National Heirloom Expo Report

...aker Creek Seeds and features speakers, a huge hall of heirloom fruits and vegetables, vendors, livestock, a biodynamic pavilion and live music. I’ve attended each year for five years in a row. This year I took my portable recording equipment and on this episode of the podcast you’ll hear interviews with root vegetable expert Grant Brians, Sir Cobalot, Sustainable Santa (yes you heard that right) and we’ll conclude with a discussion about the Cali...

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Freezing Meat With Freezer Paper

A good question came in on Friday’s post about freezing fruits and vegetables about how to freeze meat products without using plastic bags. I don’t know of a way to avoid plastic with meat products, but you can use freezer paper instead of ziplock bags. The University of Georgia Extension Service has a handy info sheet on how to wrap meat with freezer paper: Freezing Animal Products. Correction: an earlier version of this post was entitled “How t...

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A Plea for Plastic Vegetables

...I work for a TV show in New York and we are in need of several artificial vegetables and vegetable plants. Please let me know if you carry any of the following: 1. Purple Bulb Shaped Eggplants and Eggplant plants 2. Green and yellow squash (zucchini) 3. Cucumbers 4. Red Hot chilly Pepper Plants 5. Red Cherry Bomb Plants 6. Yellow Banana Pepper Plants 7. Green bean (string bean and lima bean) plant that is vine-like that I can weave onto a trellis...

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