"If it has lived, it can live again." — Geoff Lawton, permaculturist Hello, Reader, How to Compost Correctly Last Sunday, right after liturgy, Dave and I taught a quick composting workshop for our church's volunteers ahead of our annual Middle Eastern Food Festival. I filmed it and put it on YouTube 👇, in case you'd like to sit in. Composting with Worms... and a Fly That Barely Lives a Week The company that composts our festival's waste, Future Acres Urban Farm, uses Black Soldier Fly larvae....
9 days ago • 2 min read
Hello, Reader, We have honey! The tomatoes are still green but growing really well right now. Yes, there are still things that are getting eaten by deer (like potatoes and every unprotected sunfower and zinnia on our property). But we've got beets coming in so fast we're having a beet salad every other day! This abundance is exactly the "problem" we set out to have when we started growing our own food eleven years ago. Back then, we had a tiny suburban backyard, six kids, a health crisis, and...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Hello, Reader The sky turned a strange, hazy orange as we drove to Charlottesville this week. Not from anything happening here. Wildfire smoke, drifting all the way down from Canada, the same haze that's been sitting over Toronto, Boston, and New York this month. The kids kept asking why the sun looked like that. I didn't have a simple answer for them. So I looked up the actual numbers for the US. As of this morning, there are: 487 active wildfires burning across the US, covering 1.4 million...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Take time to draw your garden Inspired by Lara Call Gastinger's "Perpetual Journal Practice" and the works of Roger Tory Peterson, I started capturing my garden in this way. And I hope that despite the heat, and perhaps the mosquitoes this summer, we can all still find time to observe nature and perhaps draw it. Drawing forces you to truly look at something. And in a world of digital distraction, may very well be the last bastion of focus. That and prayer, I suppose. And there are...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
When it gets hot Last week, our house hit 97°F. Not far from here, other parts of Northern Virginia were past 100°F. We had planned a family hike and despite weather warnings decided to drive to the Shenandoah mountains very early in the morning anyway, with lots of water packed. We did a loop trail about 4 miles and were delighted to find that just when we were at our sweatiest, a freshwater pool appeared, beckoning us to go for a mid-hike swim! This gave us just the refreshment we needed to...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Happy Early Summer, Reader!Something good happened this week. Our Spicy Mix and Sweet Mix microgreens sold out on the shelves at the Lovettsville Cooperative Grocery. Permaculture Gardens, right there next to baby spring mix. It still makes me smile every time I see it. Photo by Dr Anne Stewart. Shout out to Tobin James of Lovettsville Coop! And then Chef Alison from Between the Hills Kitchen & Catering took our spent microgreens trays and planted them in the garden bed right outside her...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hey there, garden friend.We had about a hundred visitors walk through Bethany Farm for the Loudoun Spring Farm Tour two weekends ago, and even a few who drove all the way from Pennsylvania! If you were among our guests, Reader, it was so good to have met you in-person. And we hope you walked away raring to grow something good for you and/or your family. The tomatoes are not quite in the ground. (We're still recovering from farm tour) The eggplants are settling while flea beetles threaten to...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Do you like tomatoes, Reader? Tomatoes from Alix's VA Garden a few years back Or peppers, potatoes or eggplants?Well, these plants all happen to be part of the Solanacea plant family.And where we live in Virginia, these family members are growing in ground for us. But how do we ensure we actually get a successful harvest of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes or eggplants? Join us tonight at 4:30 PT / 5:30 MT / 6:30 CT / 7:30 ET. Dave and I are hosting a live webinar focusing on the Solanaceae...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, There's a log cabin on the back of our property that brings me so much joy. Now, the truth is, it has seen better days. It's rickety. There are gaps in the eaves. The red cedar is showing its age and the chinking is falling apart. We don't have the budget to do what it needs right now. But this week, I walked in with a broom, a vision, and printed art by Scottish artist Anne Thubron, and I thought: what if I just start here? Anne, by the way, illustrated much of the botanical art...
4 months ago • 2 min read