Luscious Guide to Growing Fruit Naturally

by Jill Swenson Move over vegetables. Less kale, more quince. Fewer zucchini, more kiwi. Make room for more fruit in the garden and on the farm. Whether you add fruits for your own home use or to add small crop diversity at the farm stand or farmer’s market, now is the time to explore what … Read More

The Buzz About Bees

by Jill Swenson It’s cold outside. Steep a cup of tea and put in a teaspoon of pure, local, raw honey. Then take a sip, close your eyes, and feel that warm golden glow. Give thanks for the angels of agriculture: bees. Homegrown Honey Bees: Beekeeping Your First Year, from Hiving to Honey Harvest, by … Read More

The Business of Growing Green Ideas

by Jill Swenson Growing the seeds of good ideas into books is akin to farming in some respects. In publishing, like in farming, there are large multinational, multimillion dollar corporations dominant in the industry. Yet, the groundswell of good books about small scale farms, seasonable cuisine, and sustainable living reflects the growing market for good … Read More

Meat

By Jill Swenson Sheepfolds, pigpens, chicken coops, and smoke houses:  on a farm with animals, these places have meaning. Cynthia G. Falk writes about the agricultural and architectural diversity of historic farm buildings in her new book: Barns of New York: Rural Architecture of the Empire State (Cornell University Press, 2012). This is a beautiful … Read More

Farm Memoirs

by Jill Swenson There’s nothing more enjoyable than spending a spring afternoon indoors reading a book while it rains outside or while you wait for the mud to dry. Memoirs export you to a different time and place and put the reader into the shoes walked by the author. The genre of memoir is very … Read More

Winter Reads: Water and Natural Gas

Winter brings us indoors and the weather provides an overdue excuse to sit down and pick up a book. But which one? This column will offer a review of the newest and best books on a particular topic of general interest to the readers of Small Farm Quarterly. By Jill Swenson Hydrofracking and the risks … Read More