Review: Blue Sky Body Care
A while ago, our friend Michael Wittman of Blue Sky Biochar gave us some soap. Not just any soap, it's his newest product: Blue Sky Body Care—all natural soap made with biochar and bamboo vinegar.
The 2021 Farmer's Almanac Garden Guide
Review: The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2021 Garden Guide
Let's take a look at the 2021 Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Guide.
Review: Drinkmate Carbonated Drink Maker
Here are Gardenerd HQ there's one person with European sensibilities who loves fizzy water in this house: my husband. So when Drinkmate offered to send me a carbonated drink maker, I jumped at the chance. We often post about environmental policy, and steps we can take to reduce our impact on the planet. Reusable carbonation systems like Drinkmate help keep single use disposable plastic bottles out of the landfill.
Lavender, ginseng, rosemary, barley grass, and citrus oils scent Godai Soaps.
Review: Godai Soaps
I have a confession. I'm a soap addict. I can't resist a luxurious, emollient, naturally-fragranced bar of soap.
Fingerprint cookies are just one of the delicious recipes found in Heritage Baking.
Review: Heritage Baking by Ellen King
Winter is the time for baking, so it's only fitting that Chronicle Books released Heritage Baking by Ellen King just in time for holiday festivities. What's better than breads and pastries made with whole grains? This book, showing you how to do it yourself. Here at Gardenerd, we grow a small batch of heritage grains each year. So far we've grown Turkey Red, Kamut, White Sonora, quinoa, triticale, and this year, Red Fife. We usually harvest enough to make a…
The Ever Curious Gardener is a walk through the mind of Lee Reich, PhD.
Review: The Ever Curious Gardener
When Lee Reich emailed me about his new book, The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, I was indeed curious. Gardenerds always are. Reich's new book focuses on observation (which is, I would say, the most important skill in a gardener's tool bag) of his New Paltz, NY garden, where he walks the reader through topics including propagation and planting, soil, flowering and fruiting, plant stress and more. While the book features plants…
Review: To Catch The Rain by Lonny Grafman
To Catch the Rain When Humboldt State University Press contacted me with a review copy of Lonny Grafman's To Catch The Rain, I couldn't resist the appeal of this nerdy water catchment book. Drought and aquifer depletion continue all over the world, so capturing water for reuse is more important than ever. Grafman's book "looks at real, practical, global experiences of rainwater harvesting on individual, financially constrained, and community based levels through academic, mathematical and practical perspectives." His work in…
Review: Grow What You Love by Emily Murphy
Emily Murphy is known for her website Pass The Pistil, where she shares home-grown gardening tips and seasonal ideas for food and wellness. She's also a photographer who's work shines through in her new book Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families to Change Your Life. In the interest of full disclosure, Emily and I are friends on social media, where we #FF each other regularly. I offered to write a review of her new book in a Twitter…
My feet stayed warm an average 40 minutes longer than without Snuggly Toes.
Review: Snuggly Toes
Last year, during a heat wave, Meredith of Snuggly Toes sent me a free, unsolicited pair of her alpaca fur shoe inserts to test out. Meredith runs a small farm in Oregon, and calls herself the "head pooper scooper and alpaca lover at Springtime Farms." Ever since I wrote about FiberShed I've been keen on supporting local fiber. When the package arrived, my first thought was "when will I ever need these in California." But then I remembered that my…
Long tables sloped up the hill. We sat listing to one side but the food more than made up for it.
Review: Outstanding in the Field
You've probably heard of them, these renowned dinners with elaborate, farm-fresh menus eaten on long-tables in the middle of a field somewhere. Outstanding in the Field (OITF) dinners are a feat of catering genius that bring people together for a cause. I was lucky to attend one at my very own Ocean View Farms last week as the sun dipped below the horizon. OITF's mission "is to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to…