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The Gardening Gals

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The Gardening Gals

Check out Susan & Christel's four-season suburban Permaculture garden and see how the garden weaves into a rich tapestry of life!  We'll be talking about the usual (or unusual) activities related to our garden, what's cooking in the kitchen, and how we're engaged in the larger community.  Tune in for all sorts of adventures related to distributing food and garden-related abundance which occur with regularity between the regular cycles of prepping, sowing, planting, and reaping a garden.  Typical adventures include neighborhood leaf liberation, apple distribution, bare-root strawberry abundance, work-parties, and CSA box give-aways.

Recent articles

  Making Hard Apple Cider and Apple Cider Vinegar
Aug 19, 2010

Apple Cider VinegarI was going to write about "Making Hard Apple Cider", but after we tasted the "hard apple cider", it appeared that I needed to change this title to "Making Apple Cider Vinegar".  This is the best type of experiment!  I try to create one thing and something else cool comes out the other end.
  Seasonal Abundance: Summer Strawberries
Jul 16, 2010
StrawberriesBiting into a ripe strawberry is like eating candy.   Why stop at one when you can have a whole flat or more!

One of the farmers from our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) grows organic strawberries, so every week we receive a generous pint of strawberries.
  Compost Tea and Feeding the Soil Food Web
Jun 4, 2010
Compost Tea BrewerChristel and I got interested in Actively Aerated Compost Tea (AACT) after attending a 3 day workshop taught by Dr. Elaine Ingham (SoilFoodWeb.com).   The content blew our socks off.  Brewing and spraying AACT is a way to supercharge your soil with a huge amount of active biology (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, micro-arthropods, nematodes, macro-arthropods) which will create a healthy soil-food-web.
  Sharing Your Neighbor's Garden as Your Own, or Zone 4 in an Urban/Suburban Setting
May 18, 2010
"Permaculture Principle of the Month"
Zone 4 GardenOne of the things I like best about Permaculture is the way that it's taught me to really think outside the box and look for solutions to problems in a non-linear way.  On our refrigerator, we have a piece of paper which tells us the "Permaculture Principle of the Month".  During the month, we look for and share examples of that principle in our every day lives.  This month's principle is "The Problem is the Solution".
  Fun with Fermentation: Making Root Kimchi
Apr 26, 2010
Root kimchi is a fabulous lactic-fermented food that will aid digestion, and it's a great way to store vegetables!   Root kimchi does not taste like the standard Korean kimchi with which most people are familiar.  Korean kimchi is prepared like sauerkraut with a special added chili paste.
  It Takes a Village: Harvesting the bounty growing in backyard gardens
Apr 14, 2010
PersimmonsVillage Harvest and Gardening Gals Christel Casjens and Susan Osofsky are featured on the ABC Television national LiveWellHD Network "Save My Planet" which first aired January 29, 2010.   Susan explains how to turn the abundance of backyard fruit into an opportunity to feed the hungry while Christel talks about eating local, seasonable, and organic food.  Watch the video!
  Planting A Spring Garden
Mar 24, 2010
BorageFor those who want to start a spring or summer garden, it's time to start planning and planting.  Observation is your friend!
  Living the Local Food Life: Urban & Rural Points of View
Mar 11, 2010
Getting to the point where localization is functioning well with beneficial relationships from all species working fluently together is a complex process requiring a lot of relationship building, community involvement and action.  We will share our journeys of how we have made the move to a localized economy within the San Francisco Bay Area which provides farmers right livelihoods, enables low-income families to enjoy the luxury of eating local, organic food, creates carbon sinks, brings back threatened and endangered species, utilizes available land from small backyards to vast public rangelands and out into the wilderness, and does all this within our foodshed.
  Fun with Fermentation: Making Sauerkraut
Feb 25, 2010
cabbageFermented food is fun to make, healthy to eat, and preserves the harvest. Making sauerkraut is a really easy hands-on way to learn about live fermentation  and only takes about 15 minutes to make.
  Building the Soil with Cover Crops
Jan 25, 2010
Crop CropsCover Crops - What are they?  Compost Crops - Are those the same thing?   And, why would someone plant a crop which is not going to be eaten?
Read on to find out the answers to the above questions, and along the way, learn that cover crops improve soil texture, improve soil biology, build the soil, increase the water holding capacity of soil, and reduce water and wind erosion problems.
 
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