About half way through the growing season, the lackluster performance of some of our veggies prompted us to pull out the test kits and check our soil out. The most important discovery is that throughout our garden, the soil PH is far higher than it should be, over 8 in some places. Most plants perform best in a range of 6 to 7, with some acid loving plants performing well as low as 5. An elevated soil PH can keep plants from absorbing available nutrients, which inhibits growth, invites pest problems, decreases yield, and makes the food produced less rich in micronutrients.
Category Archives: Food Production
Seed to Seed Book Review
Seed to Seed provides essential information on how to germinate, grow, and save seed from almost any plant you could want to grow in your garden. This book is a necessity for the home gardener that’s just getting started with saving seed from heirloom and open pollinated varieties.
Huckleberry Jam, Syrup
Each year, we get fresh mountain huckleberries from McCall, Idaho. They are fantastic fresh, in pies or tarts, or made into jam or syrup. We really enjoy them, and like to stretch them out over the course of the year. This is our recipe for huckleberry jam.
The Backyard Homestead Book Review
This is an excellent book. We’ve read a number of similar books, and this is our favorite. The Backyard Homestead has great overviews on gardening, raising animals, landscaping with plants, maintaining fruit trees, keeping bees, homebrewing, cheese making, and more. While each of these topics is broad enough that you should have other guides or […]
Rosemary Marsala Onion Jam
This stuff is really rich because of how reduced the onions and wine are. It should be good on herb and other savory breads and baked goods, and is great on crackers. I imagine it would also make an excellent glaze for meats.