What to do this week The first frost is still (I hope) a while away but parts of the garden are starting to look tired and tapped out. As the harvest moves through the garden, it’s important to clean up as you go. It’s time to pull up or tillRead...

Sorry for the radio silence here. I have been ill — in the hospital actually. Nothing serious or life-threatening, my nice Doctor says stress and overwork. Working 16-hour days, seven days a week for four months straight was not a good idea. Turns out I am not superwoman. Crap. IRead More

What to do this week Eat! You’ve put 38 weeks’ worth of hard and noble labor into your fall harvest, now it’s time to enjoy it. Michelle Smith and Madeline Yakimchuk are taking a well-deserved week off, so the Spectator decided to ask some of the people involved with theRead More

This year my farm has seen a succession of middle to top predators with catastrophic consequences for the chicken population and, by extension, my livelihood. A raucous crowd of ravens was first, flying boldly into the barn and coming out with whole eggs in their beaks. I was sure they wereRead More

What to do this week Cover crops are garden plants that you don’t plant to eat. They cover up garden space that doesn’t have an immediate planned use. Why, you ask? They are planted as a way of stabilizing soil and building organic matter, are useful for weed control andRead More

King Corn, like most monarchs, is demanding of land and resources, requiring high inputs like fertilizer, water and pest control. True, it rewards the effort with impressive yields; so much so that in an age when we thought oil was forever, with the agrichemicals it provided, corn became the dominantRead More