When I moved I inherited a large established vegetable garden that had been plowed up by a tractor for the last decade or so. The vegetables were growing in 8 inches of loose soil over hardpan. Roots couldnt penetrate the hardpan, grow to their full depth and take advantage of nutrients and water in lower levels of the soil, so I had to supply more water and fertilizer than I liked. The following spring I marked out permanent beds and walkways to avoid compacting the soil in my planting beds and added nutrients to the paths to help keep them weed-free. I turned the beds by hand with a...

I keep looking for ways to improve my garden soil without spending a lot of money. Cover crops do this quite well. The seed is cheap, and the crops dont require much maintenance, though choosing them and timing their planting take some attention. Cover crops protect the soil from being compacted by repeated freezing and thawing over the winter. Ive planted frost-hardy annual ryegrass and oats as late as September--right around the first frost where I live--and had them grow a good soil-protecting mat before the ground froze hard. During the growing season cover crops can outcompete...

I dont want to feed my family too much beef, and when we do eat it, Id rather serve a small cheeseburger or a good steak than a dish where the beefiness is covered up by other ingredients. Adding sauted and finely chopped mushrooms, onions, carrots makes ground turkey a succulent substitute for ground beef for a wholesome version of a diner favorite. While Im generally opposed to sneaky recipes la Jessica Seinfeld, I am happy to get some potassium-rich shrooms into the kids. The umami provided by the one-two punch of mushrooms and Worcestershire can stimulate kids appetites for this...

Mulching helps me get more from my water, time, fertilizer and energy. Ive written about how mulch helps me deal with hot and cold, wet and dry. It also smothers weeds and enriches soil during the growing season and protects soil structure from repeated freezing and thawing in winter. There are many materials you can use as mulch. Lawn clippings add nitrogen to the soil as they decompose. They may be weed-free if you mow your lawn before anything goes to seed in it. Be careful of clippings from lawns that have been treated with herbicide; it can kill garden plants. Keep the layer of cl...

Unlike urban and community gardeners, I dont have obvious space limitations for my vegetable garden. But I dont want to expand it, partly because thats about all the area I can keep picked, watered and weeded and partly because Ive put up an eight-footdeer fence. So Im learning how to grow more food in less space. My garden is50 x 250, which isnt huge considering Im trying to grow enough food for my family to eat in summer and preserve for winter, plus extra for guests and a local soup kitchen. Intensive plant spacing helps. Instead of row-cropping I grow plants in beds three or fou...

I learn a lot from garden books written by authors from different parts of the country, but sometimes I have to figure out how to adapt that information for my region. For example, the excellent book on growing garlic by someone in the hot dry Southwest gives mulching and planting dates about a month ahead of mine and doesnt say anything about how to cope with overly wet summers. Its really helpful to have good local info. If you know experienced gardeners in your neighborhood youre all set. If not, here are some sources to try: Cooperative Extensions operate out of land-grant univ...

These come together really quickly. Sometimes, I take care of most of the hands-on time the night before by doing all the measuring and half the mixing. Just refrigerate the two mixtures in separate containers. In the morning, youll just need to combine the mixtures, pat out and cut the dough, and bake. My kids are grateful when I divide the dough in half and include kids mix-ins and grown-up mix-ins. The idea here is that someday well take turns -- sometimes well have one kind, another time the other but not both in the same batch. Right now, in our house, its chocolate chips for all...

Its maddening to spend weeks watering and weeding a garden bed only to have it decimated by insect pests. I refuse to use commercial pesticides, given the health risks they pose both to humans and to beneficial insects like bees. I prefer other methods for pest control and am always on the lookout for new strategies. The first step is to pay attention. I walk my garden regularly, looking for signs of damage--wilted or spotted leaves, chewed leaves and stems, etc. that way I spot some pest problems before they become overwhelming. Some insects can be controlled by hand-picking. Many ...

I enjoy converting my kitchen and yard waste into nutrient-rich compost for my garden. Ive been able to produce all that I need without paying for tumblers or special equipment or following any very scientific regimen. Books say that compost should contain about 2/3 materials high in carbon (like hay, straw and leaves) and 1/3 materials high in nitrogen (like fresh grass clippings, weeds, and food scraps). I dont measure what I add, but I keep layering in different types of material. If the pile is slow to decompose I know it needs either more water or more nitrogen-rich materials....

Every winter I have a lot of fun flipping through plant catalogs, dreaming of harvests that are months away. But I also invest some time in thinking about planning my crop rotation. That time pays off, harvest after harvest, providing important benefits that improve my gardens yield. Rotation improves soil fertility. Heavy feeders like lettuce and broccoli take a lot of nitrogen out of the soil. If I grew them in the same place year after year my yields would go down, or Id have to add a lot of fertilizer. Legumes like peas and beans replenish the nitrogen the soil will need to support...

When I was growing up, my mom looked for easy recipes in womens magazines. She had a shoebox full of stuff that sounded good but never got made. Then there were the keepers, like a pseudo-gyro sandwich from the pork people. In the 80s the National Pork Board was on a marketing blitz to re-image pork away from its reputation as a fatty meat and promote it as the other white meat. In fact, if you dont eat pork, you can substitute chicken in many of the recipes from those days that call for strips of pork loin. The new pork website has moved away from toting pork as the other white me...

Every year I keep a list of things I want to do better in the next years garden. Every year keep better records is on that list. Im still figuring out what better means for me. At first I tried journal entries for each days work. This was fun in March and April, but by August I felt too busy to write. And the next winter it was hard to get information quickly out of this log. Now I use a just a few quick-reference records. My map shows where Ive planted things. I need this to plan crop rotation so that the soil doesnt get depleted and diseases dont recur. Ive assigned each garden b...

Last time, I wrote about some of the ways wild temperature swings make garden plan-ning harder. Another problematic aspect of climate change is altered rain pattern. In recent years some parts of the country have undergone catastrophic droughts or floods. I havent had to deal with anything so drastic, but Ive had very dry summers where plants wilted and grew slowly and very wet ones where diseases spread fast and plants grew mold. For dry times, Im learning to avoid wasting water by getting water straight to plant roots and keeping it off leaves. For big upright plants like tomatoes I ke...

Wild weather fluctuations make garden planning difficult. In the past ten years the last frost date in my town has fluctuated between April 30 and June 10. In cool summers my tomatoes and eggplants bear poorly, in hot ones peas die early and greens bolt or turn bitter. Ive learned a few ways of adapting: Pay attention. I watch the weather forecast for a couple of weeks after the official frost-free date, and cover sensitive plants when cold weather threatens. Use season-extending devices. Floating row covers provide 4-6 degrees of frost protection (depending on their weight) and ...

Есть примерно 74.2 метра практически свободной планировки в 2х комнатной квартире. Настроился на перепланировку в 3х комнатную квартиру с помощью переноса кухни в коридор и объединения с залом. Примерил в живую, все понравилось. Пришло время заселяться и появились некоторые сомнения и еще несколько вариантов.1 комната отделена несущей стеной, тут без вариантов. На остальном пространстве, единственное ограничение - мокрая зона может быть расположена только над коридором или на своем месте, т.е. максимум на расстояние 2.3 метра от стены с входной дверью. Итак имеем:

For winters rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins Algernon Charles Swinburne At first I enjoyed the winter respite from canning, harvesting, weeding and bug-picking. Now Im eager to plant again. A few things can go into the garden soon in my area (upstate NY, zone 4/5). Ill plant peas and a first succession of lettuce and spinach as soon as the ground has thawed and dried enough so that a squeezed handful of dirt will stick together but wont ooze water. Even before that I...

I find that pleasing the palates of both grown-ups and kids in the same meal often involves add-ons. Sometimes this means having too much of a good thing like the gorgeous cilantro I bought for these delicious Pork Meatball Bahn Mi Sandwiches I found on Canadian food writerJulie Van Rosendaals website. I had hesitated to buy the cilantro just so the grown-ups could have a few sprigs, but even if the kids didnt touch it, we parents modeled eating green stuff! Im happy to say that overall, the sandwiches did their job ofexpanding palates thanks to the complex Asian flavors in the juicy meatb...

Wish Sandwich A wish sandwich is the kind of sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you wish you had some meat. -- Elwood Blues So, DH paraphrased a Blues Brother when I served Hot Chicken Sandwiches. At first, I thought he meant he wished we were having something else for dinner. My thinking was that this dinner was a wholesome hearty throwback to classic diner food and a good solution to the dilemma of how to serve roast chicken to kids who (I thought) loved gravy on an activity-packed winter weeknight. Well, it was, darn it. And Ill stand by that. Really, when one hits the doo...

I love chocolate and orange together. I also love dried cranberries, so this soft version of a chocolate chip cookie is one of my favorites to bake at the holidays. I have to admit the kids ask me to bake some without the cranberries. I just replace them with more chips! Chocolate Cranberry Orange Drops: 2/3 cup butter (at cool room temperature) tsp. baking powder cup sugar tsp. baking soda 1 egg tsp. salt cup orange juice 2 cups flour 2 Tbsp. grated orange rind cup chocolate chips cup dried cranberries Using a mixer set at medium, cream ...

Today is St. Nicholas Day. I finally tasted Trader Joes Peppermint Jo Jos. And on Sunday I heard a wind ensemble play Vince Guaraldis Christmastime is Here from A Charlie Brown Christmas. All of this has me thinking about baking cookies, so I took out the copy of Betty Crockers Cooky Book my mother gave me. You can actually still buy a facsimile version of this book. I can just see Mad Mens Betty Draper bringing a plate of cookies from this book to the door for a group of neighborhood carolers. The funny thing is, even though I wasnt born when the book was published, its my go-to sour...