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17 Articles

3 min.

Work with the Birds

Chickens have helped me garden for years. That statement may invoke images of hens gently setting seeds into the ground or munching on weeds. As idyllic as that would be, it’s not reality. Chickens would rather eat those seeds and munch on the tomatoes. And if you don’t keep them out of the garden during germination time, they’ll devour the seedlings! Their work happens before those seedlings sprout. After fall’s killing frost, and after I set a grate over the garlic mulch to keep happy hens from stripping it away, I open the garden gate. Roaming chickens break up cold-killed organic matter, scratch it into the soil, consume a bug or two, and then top it all off with nitrogen rich fertilizer. That potent manure kick-starts decomposition and then mellows before planting time.…

9 min.

Dear MOTHER

EDITORS’ PICK PFAS in Cardboard (From Dear MOTHER, December 2023/January 2024) It seems PFAS are in cardboard used for food! My question is: If I only use cardboard with little or no ink (only black), does it also contain PFAS? For a number of years, I’ve used it in sheets to suppress weeds. Even more recently, when planting, I’ve shredded and mixed it with vermicompost to use as a top dressing. However, if shipping boxes for items other than food also contain PFAS, this practice most likely should be stopped. Please see what you can find out and if there’s a way to determine if said cardboard is toxic. Sally White Via email We assigned Robert Turner to uncover more information. This investigation turned into a much deeper dive than expected, so here’s what we can…

8 min.

Growing Indigenous Agroforestry in the Northwest

“‘Agroforestry’ is a modern term for what tribes have been practicing for millennia,” says Stephanie Gutierrez, Ecotrust’s forest and community program director. “For many tribes, that’s traditional gathering and management practices, harvesting fungi, roots, and trees.” Examples might include tending wild huckleberry bushes or prescribed burns to improve acorn harvests. This is in addition to practices that have been commonly associated with agroforestry, such as silvopasture or the creation of riparian buffers. With the increasing impacts of climate change on agriculture, Gutierrez thinks tribally managed agroforestry “may point the way to sustainable agriculture and wild-food sources, allowing us to provide food for our communities.” One way the network sees that happening is through improvement and increased use of the USDA’s Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), a growth and yield model that can simulate…

6 min.

Seed Starting with Chickens

If you’ve raised broiler chickens in mobile shelters on pasture, then you’re familiar with the view looking back along the path the chickens have traveled, where plants are flattened and covered in manure. Then, as you scan farther back, you’ll see the grass recovering, with a rich green hue from the flush of fertility. Looking at that same sight on my farm, I’ve been wondering how I might take greater advantage of all of that regrowth. So, for the past two seasons, I’ve been experimenting with using chickens as no-till planters to seed annuals into my perennial pastures. While the pasture plants all respond well to the effects of grazing, trampling, and manure, there’s a period of dormancy in the grass immediately after the grazing event. In addition to using chickens,…

7 min.

How to Grow Morels at Home

Every weekend at the farmers market, a few people approach me with hungry twinkles in their eyes and ask wistfully if it’s possible to grow morel mushrooms at home. It’s entirely possible, although many will tell you it’s a fool’s errand. It usually takes 3 to 5 years for morels to grow, and you won’t know whether it worked until they pop up. Morels have several particular needs; perhaps the most critical is that they must experience a cold snap to trigger growth. My family is fortunate to live in Michigan, where we’re guaranteed a cold snap in winter, and the spring morel season is a big deal here. They say big snowstorms yield the best morel seasons. If you live in a warmer climate, growing morels isn’t likely to work,…

11 min.

The Greenhouse Revolution

As in many countries, the United States’ food system has become dependent on multinational corporations that import food grown in faraway places. Since the early 2000s, food import costs have increased five times over — to a whopping $18 billion annually. Of course, pineapples and kiwis come from locales with warmer climates, but we also import produce that can easily be grown in the U.S., including tomatoes, blueberries, and bell peppers, even during summer months. Domestically sourced produce comes mostly from drought-stricken California, which supplies one-third of the remaining vegetables consumed in the U.S. and three-quarters of fruits and nuts—but ever more precariously, as evidenced by almond and avocado failures in recent years. This over-reliance on imports wasn’t always the norm. During the early 1900s, nearly 40% of Americans still lived…

7 min.

Nurture a Nature Lover

Before I became a full-time “peasant,” I was an environmental educator, tasked with instilling nature stewardship in young minds. My boss gave me benchmarks for my nature hikes and stream surveys: “Educate students about river pollution,” “Inform students of regional endangered species,” or “Equip students to understand recycling.” While I did my utmost to engage with my young tag-alongs and give them an outdoor adventure, I noticed a disturbing trend. When the kids talked about their own relationships with nature, they were full of guilt and fear. Through the unrelenting stream of information now available in the modern age, the kids’ young minds were too swiftly saddled with the knowledge of deforestation, escalated weather reports, forest fires, extinct species, polluted waterways, and grave-faced celebrities telling them to “do better.” Well meaning…

8 min.

Build a Simple, Low-Cost Biogas Digester

Up to half of the average North American household’s food ends up getting tossed out, with most of this “waste” ending up in landfills, where it’s tucked into layers of garbage and gobbled up by methanogenic (methane producing) bacteria. Yet, by tossing out last week’s limp lettuce or putrid pasta, we scrap the energy-production potential contained within the food. A mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, and a small percentage of other gases, biogas is considered clean-burning fuel. A 5-gallon bucket filled with organic matter — food scraps, spent flowers, fats, animal excrement, and green yard waste—can yield enough gas to sustain a cooking flame for about two hours. The system described here accepts one 5-gallon bucket of organic waste a day, which would meet the needs for many households. Your digester…

7 min.

Oshibana

Oshibana (押し花) is the Japanese art of using pressed flowers and other botanical materials, such as leaves and stems, to create a composition. Artists essentially “paint” a picture using pieces of nature. The petals and leaves are flattened using a variety of pressing techniques that eliminate moisture and light. The creative options are endless, with artists making floral wall art, cards, bookmarks, jewelry, place mats, decorative candles, and more. Oshibana began in the 16th century as a Samurai discipline and has come in and out of fashion. Recently, pressing flowers has reemerged as many people try to find new ways to relax and connect to nature. Benefits of Oshibana Oshibana creates an opportunity for nature connection, boosts mental health, and helps sustain us through physical ailments. Nature Connection Engaging with nature can be fun, inspiring,…

5 min.

No-Till Farming with Technology

Soil consists of sand, silt, and clay, which come together with organic matter to form aggregates. Pores within and outside these aggregates hold water, air, organic matter, and minerals, and these pores help soil organisms and plant roots thrive. Tilling breaks apart these aggregates and their pores, while no-till farming minimizes soil disturbance and preserves the pores. No-till practices improve soil health and reduce erosion. They also increase the water-holding capacity of soil, and conserve and regulate moisture within soil, such as by controlling water infiltration and improving water retention. However, no-till farming doesn’t necessarily exclude equipment or technology for working the soil. Consider the following no-till equipment for the next growing season. No-Till Planters and Drills “The very first piece of equipment we need to talk about is a no-till planter or…

6 min.

Chick and Duckling Imprinting

When poultry hatch, they quickly learn to stay close to a protective carer. This phenomenon, called “imprinting,” occurs in all bird species that have good eyesight and mobility, including domestic poultry, within a few hours of hatching. As ground-nesting parents are likely to lead their family away soon after hatching to avoid predation, the young quickly learn to identify and follow their mother for protection. Despite the protection we provide on the farm, poultry parents and their young still retain these instincts. Indeed, maternal care remains invaluable to poultry raised free-range. The mother defends her young and leads them to safety, shows them how to forage and roost, and warns them which foods to avoid. From their mother and the flock, youngsters learn appropriate social behavior and communication skills and how…

9 min.

Cold-Smoking The Antidote to Boring Food

Years ago, I read a description in a text, the name of which has long since been lost in my memory, of a cold smoker built into the hills of Appalachia. I’d never heard of such a thing. It had a small firebox in the ground that poured smoke into a horizontal chimney, also in the earth. From there, the smoke, now much colder (having bled a great deal of its heat into the soil), filled a small shack with its flavor-enhancing mist through a hole in the floor. It became one of those projects I just couldn’t let go. Flavoring food with smoke, without having to time it perfectly, is a fantastic idea. While an apparatus of that size and scope is a decent undertaking, there are upsides of having…

3 min.

Can I Be Prevented from Going Off-Grid?

Welcome to our series answering reader questions and concerns about how to cut the utility-company cord. Hoss Boyd is founder, president, and CEO of TeraVolt Energy and a recognized solar and energy-storage expert. Learn more about TeraVolt Energy at http://TVNRG.com. If I go completely energy self-sufficient and fire the power company, can the city or county condemn my property for not having a grid connection? Bill Underwood You’d think we'd all have the option to be grid-tied or not, but rules differ by location. Even in Texas, where I live (and where property rights are highly protected), the rules sometimes favor power companies and large cities. One day, a family living on their Texas ranch discovered survey flags dotting their pasture. The electric utility serving their area had planned for a high-voltage utility…

11 min.

How to Make Garlic Scape Powder

Every fall, my husband plants 350 cloves of hardneck garlic, which means we harvest 350 heads of garlic the following summer. We prefer to grow cold-hardy hardneck cultivars instead of the softneck types typically found in grocery stores or growing in warmer climes. One advantage is their cloves are larger with thicker skins, making them easier to peel. They taste less sharp to us, yet are more flavorful. Another huge advantage is that only hardneck garlics produce an early harvest of delicious edible scapes. Garlic scapes are smooth cylindrical stalks that spring up from the center of each plant in early summer. Unless cut, they’ll form a flower with seeds. Scapes are typically harvested for two reasons. First, removing them stops the flowers and seeds from forming, so the plant focuses…

3 min.

Keep Chickens Sustainably

Opting out of industrial agriculture and keeping your own chickens is an environmentally friendly choice already, so a lot of choices you make about your flock, such as which breeds to keep, are neutral from an environmental perspective. However, other choices can help your little farm be as green as possible. Gardening. One of the easiest ways to make a chicken coop environmentally friendly is to combine it with a vegetable garden. Chickens produce high-quality, nitrogen-rich, nontoxic, free fertilizer, so you can repurpose their waste to replace some of the chemicals used in gardening. Chicken manure is high in nitrogen, so compost it thoroughly with organic material, such as leaves or hay, before spreading it on your active garden. Or, spread fresh manure on your off-season garden. Because of its high…

4 min.

Health Benefits of 5 Weeds

Herbal wisdom includes plenty of stories lauding the potential benefits of herbal weeds, and there’s also some clinical evidence that they work. Let’s look at five of my favorite beneficial weeds and see what science and tradition tell us about them. (To access the studies cited, read this article online at www.MotherEarthNews.com/5-Beneficial-Weeds.) Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale) Dandelion root contains a prebiotic constituent called “inulin,” which acts as a food source for probiotic bacteria in the gut. Taraxasterol is another constituent present in dandelion roots, which scientific research has found to have anti-inflammatory activity. In herbal tradition, dandelion root is used as a bitter to help enhance digestion and support liver function. Animal research has demonstrated that constituents found in the roots have hepatoprotective (liver-protective) effects. In a human pilot study, dandelion leaf was found…

2 min.

Plant-Based Textile Dyes

I’ve spent the past year learning how to create custom colors using marigold and coreopsis. I picked these two flowers because of their brilliant colors, though you may have to dye something multiple times. Natural dyes adhere best to natural fibers, such as cotton, linen, and wool, and they’ll adhere to some synthetics, such as rayon. Most fabrics and yarns will need to be prewashed before you dye them. Dye silks separately from anything else, as they’ll gobble up dye. In addition to your flowers and fiber, you’ll need a mordant, which allows dye to bond with fiber. Your results will vary based on your fabric, the mordant you choose, the container you use, and the amount of heat you apply. Start with two canning jars, one for each of your flowers. Pack…

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