Home

Blogs

Visiting Seattle, Washington, the Hippy Gourmet meets up with Chef/Owner Christine Keff from Flying Fish Restaurant! In this segment from the Organic Living with the Hippy Gourmet TV Show, we learn to make Winter Squash Gnocchi!

Seed and plant exchanges are simple and easy ways to get most - or even sometimes all - of the plants and seeds you want completely free. It takes a little work on your end, but if you like to try out a variety of different plants or you love starting new flowers and plants from seeds, then you should locate an exchange in your area or find someone using one of the online gardening forums.

In a plant or seed exchanges, when someone has extra flower and plant seeds, they offer to trade them for something else. Or you can offer to perform a service in exchange for someone sending you a plant or seeds that you can't find. Usually in the online forum, the post will state what kinds of seeds they have, and what kinds of seeds they're wanting to trade for.

If you have the seeds wanted, and you want what they're offering, you contact them and make arrangements to send your seeds to them in the mail, and they'll send theirs to you.

You should devote a section of your organic garden to herbs. Herbs are very common in lots of recipes. They complement the food we eat and are a good source of beneficial nutrients. Herbs are relatively easy to grow; thriving in most soil conditions with little fertilizer.

Herb plants are either annuals or perennials. Annuals grow only for a portion of the year or season and need to be replanted each year. Perennials grow year round for multiple seasons. Herbs grown in a container, will live all year, if brought indoors for the winter. In the garden, they will grow and bloom again after the winter.

Herbs will generally grow well when they receive more than 12 hours of sunlight (12-16 hours is a good range). You can grow herbs in a container indoors in addition to planting outside. It might be preferable to have the herbs indoors, in a location that will receive lots of light, so that you can easily snip the plants as you cook.

An organic gardener in Georgia shows the progress of his organic garden on May 16th, 2007.

Info: Figs are easy to start by planting a small new branch and keeping it water for a month.

You are worried about the chemicals and pesticides used by commercial farmers to grow the food that we all need to eat in order to live. Organically grown food is the natural answer to this problem. But there can be a financial downside to buying purely organic food. Most people can't afford to buy it on a regular basis in the natural food store or supermarket that carries organic products. The store might also be too far away from your house for you to purchase organic food often. You can create your own organic garden, using all natural products for growing your plants.