The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Broccoli side shoots

Broccoli side shoots

October did turn out to be the month of the broccoli.  Every day or so, we'd have a huge helping and eat every sprig and chunk --- nothing tastes better than homegrown broccoli in season.

Steamed broccoli

In the spring, I cut my broccoli heads low, peel off the woody skin near the stalk base, and cook up the whole kit and caboodle.  In the winter, though, I don't have anything else Fall raspberriesbegging to fill the broccoli space, so I cut the heads high, leaving most of the stem behind.  Within a week or two, side shoots come popping up, which I cut and eat just like the original head. 

This endless broccoli crop continues until the first killing frost --- and since we've dodged even a light frost so far this fall, that might be a while!  The lack of frost means we're still eating raspberries too, and they're even better in cool weather.  Dare I suggest we may still be enjoying fresh berries at Thanksgiving?

Our chicken waterer gives the flock a healthy treat of clean water.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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What a contrast with the growing season where we live, Ontario, Canada, several hours north of the city of Toronto. It is snowing this morning! The main crops here are maple syrup and cranberries, rocks, bush and bog. Not much in between for the home gardener, too many bears, deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, foxes etc. who love helping themselves to anything edible.

Comment by Maggie Fri Nov 2 09:12:03 2012





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