August 22, 2022

In frost free areas we’re blessed to be able to grow tropical food plants in the summer and better known European style veggies in the winter. This time of year, spring, is especially abundant with its overlap between the cool weather and hot weather plants. This post shares pics and links to info for a small selection of food plants from our garden.

Subtropical Spring in a RealFood Garden
January 24, 2022

The possible uses for bananas–the fruit, the foliage, and the trunks–seem almost endless. In this article I share lots of images and ideas for using banana patches as mulch producers and for an erosion control project.

Bananas for Mulch Production and Erosion Control
January 17, 2022

The best way to get more effective at growing your own food is to make it super easy to eat something directly from your garden on a daily basis. Here are 5 categories of low-maintenance food plants (or plant parts) you might have been overlooking, and strategies for using them to build more food sovereignty into your life.

How to Make Home Grown Food Simpler and Easier
October 18, 2021

Loofahs are easy to grow. You can eat them when they’re small, and if you let them get big they make great bathroom sponges. They also make pretty good kitchen sponges. Best of all, when they wear out you can compost them to feed next year’s loofahs.

Loofah – Grow Your Own Sponges
June 25, 2018

8 of my favorite multi-purpose fodder-and-food plants, and some of the ways I use them.

8 Abundant Fodder Forest Plants, & How to Use Them
September 3, 2018

This article lists 5 plants for a cut and carry goat fodder system, that also serve lots of other needs as well.

5 Cut and Carry Goat Fodder Plants that Poultry, Pigs, Cattle and People can also eat
July 5, 2019

6 ​Salad bowl contenders that can handle heat and high humidity. ​The 7th plant can make a nutritious salad by itself if you have the right growing niche for it. Plus a tip on getting the most nutrition from your salad greens. UPDATED July 2023.

7 Easy Substitutes for When Lettuce Won’t Grow
November 21, 2020

This post uses a pumpkin patch to illustrate how interrelated elements in a vegetable garden, an orchard, or any living system, are healthier and happier than isolated fragments of life existing alone.

Building Ecosystems as a Side-Effect of Growing Food
August 2, 2021

Long, flexible mulberry branches + pieces of old veggie net = caterpillar-proofed veggies.

Irrigation for our Modular Veggie Garden
October 11, 2021

Yacon tubers are sweet, crunchy, and delicious raw or cooked, and are a firm favorite in our family. This post is a quick introduction to yacon and my experiences with growing and eating it.

An Introduction to Sweet, Crunchy Yacon
December 6, 2021

The success of your food garden depends on the connections between the plants and each other, and between the plants, you, and your kitchen (and also your medicine cabinet).

How to Plan a Food Garden
December 6, 2021

Ginger has thrived at our place since I learned to think about what it gives and what it needs in terms of its connections to the other plants around it, to me as the ginger-grower, and to me and my family as the ginger-users.

Ginger in a RealFood Garden
February 7, 2022

​​Pictures and commentary from our garden​, ​a super-simple recipe for banana milkshake (simple only if you don’t count the steps that bring the milk to the kitchen)​, and a brief mention of one useful thing to do with your egg whites when you only need the yolks.

Farm Update: In the Garden
March 14, 2022

Recently I began to appreciate the sheer beauty of the Mexican tarragon in my garden. Then I learned what a delicious iced tea it makes, and from there I discovered its huge array of potential uses in the kitchen, the medicine cabinet, and the garden.

Mexican Tarragon
August 1, 2022

This post shares lots of pics and a few tips on growing and harvesting ginger, and making ginger honey to settle coughs and for colds, flu, and general immune support. There are also some pics and tips on arrowroot harvesting and replanting, since we sometimes grow these two plants together.

Harvesting Ginger, Making Ginger Honey
February 27, 2023

Once you know how to tell a male pumpkin flower from a female one, it’s a simple matter to hand pollinate your female flowers and be sure of more pumpkins, especially in rainy weather when pollinating insects aren’t on the job. (Or your pollinator population has been decimated by pesticides.)

How to Hand Pollinate Pumpkin Flowers
May 2, 2023

7 small ways to start growing your own food, improving your nutrition, and lowering your grocery costs – even if you’re short on time, space, or confidence.

Supermarket Strategy #7 – Seven Ways to Start Growing Your Own Food in Small Spaces
June 21, 2023

If we make our food gardens as much like natural ecosystems as we can, full of diversity and interconnections, they’ll be more vigorous and productive with less effort on our part.

Tips For Productive, Low Maintenance Food Gardens
August 6, 2024

Aloe vera is so easy to grow and so useful when you need it. Here is a story, mostly told in pictures, of a nasty chemical burn and how aloe vera came to the rescue.

Using Fresh Aloe Vera Leaf to Treat Burns at Home
November 24, 2024

Sweet potato tubers + greens combined give you a calorie AND nutrient dense food from one growing space. Here’s how to grow them at home, including ideas for protecting them from rodents.

How to Grow Sweet Potatoes in Containers and Why You’d Want to