Author: Garth Brown

For the recent market I had the idea of handing out little bags of salt and sugar that, when dissolved in half a gallon of water, would make a good brine for pork chops or a loin roast. I assumed most people would be familiar with the concept, but a surprising number of our customers...

Throughout our long and passionate marriage, my wife Alanna has often compared a delicious, homemade dinner to the products of the most iconic fast food chain in the world. Specifically, she will say, “This tastes just like [most iconic fast food chain in the world’s hamburger.]” My standard response is to vehemently disagree, regardless of...

Normandy suggested I do a post about what exactly I eat over the course of few days. In other posts I wrote about my diet being repetitive... well here's the proof. All the weights are of fully cooked food. I had a hard enough time remembering to weigh things right before I ate them, there...

Instead of cells or pots I use soil blocks for all my early vegetable starts. The process involves making a wet soil mix (there are a bunch of different recipes) and using a specialized tool that forms them into perfect little cubes, each of which is planted with a seed or seeds. It takes a...

I’ve bemoaned the length of this past winter in almost every post I’ve written in the last month, but it has made the dandelion greens delicious. Dandelion greens are usually quite bitter when they first appear, and within a couple days they become too much for even my accommodating palate. But with the cold, cloudy...

This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series. If you're new to the blog read this post first so you're up to speed. Last week both Garth and I each had a respective night of little sleep and subsequently had quiet and private coffee cravings. Had we both been insomniac on the same night I suspect...

Almost all livestock fencing is ultimately a psychological ploy. This is obvious in the case of a single strand of flimsy electric twine successfully containing a few dozen beef cows, but the five strands of high tensile wire around the perimeter would not stop a cow for too long if they didn’t also have a...

This is the very end of my chicken supply. I like chicken soup made from 'retired' egg hens. I dug my last two small chickens out of the bottom of my freezer last week and Normandy made a really great stew over the weekend. Yesterday I finished off the left-overs for lunch. I'm also staring...

I’ve always enjoyed cooking, and I’ve always been concerned about the treatment of farm animals. I was a vegetarian for several years, and I have an abiding interest in dietary science. But, as much as I am and always have been interested in food, I am blessed to have a reasonably healthy relationship with it....

I recently restocked on maple syrup by bartering with Brian from Mill Hollow Maple. One component of this year's home-grown adventure is to be involved in, or at least lay eyes on, all my various foodstuffs during production. So we made a little family outing to go see the boiling as it happened. He has a...