I have foraged and eaten wild foods of all kinds for the past 40 years. For most people, foraging revolves around mushrooms, berries or wild asparagus, and I certainly harvest those. But while preparing to teach my first foraging class for West High School’s Community Education program several years ago, I discovered a forging book, Eat the Weeds by Ben Harris, that … [Read more...]
Why You Should Visit Mystic Hot Springs in Monroe Utah
Traveling home in an old school bus from the last Grateful Dead concert, Mike Ginsburg, a hippie with a lot of soul, found himself in the small rural town of Monroe when his bus broke down on the side of the road. From there ― which is darn close to the middle of nowhere ― fate took over, as it usually does, and Mike was exactly where he was meant to be. Within a week of … [Read more...]
The Freshness Factor: 8 Utah Farm to Table Restaurants You Will Love
Although the term “farm to table” might be a tad overworked these days, there really is a bevy of discerning local chefs and restaurateurs who place a high value on freshness and do their damndest to source produce locally whenever possible. That means that you really can get a fresh, healthy meal with a smallish carbon footprint in many of our best Utah eateries. Here are a … [Read more...]
Down on the [Urban] Farm: A Visit With Frog Bench Farms
You could drive right past it a dozen times and not even know it’s there. But tucked away on a quiet, residential street in a neighborhood near Foothill Boulevard is an urban farm that supplies produce, cut flowers, microgreens, and more to many of our area’s finest restaurants. It’s called Frog Bench Farms. Nearly 10-years-old now, Frog Bench Farms was created in 2012 by … [Read more...]
40 Acres Not Necessary: Utahns are Homesteading in Urban Backyards
Utahns are known for their food storage and preparedness methods and have been encouraged for years to acquire food storage and a 72-hour kit in case of an earthquake or other emergency. For those who did, that storage came in handy during last year’s woes. While many of us had a difficult time believing that we were, in fact, experiencing a pandemic during our lifetime, … [Read more...]
Gardening in Pots: Anyone Can Grow a Garden
After gardening virtually all of my life, and later teaching gardening classes through West High School’s Community Education Program, I have concluded that almost anyone can grow a garden. The only real requirement is about six hours of direct sunlight for any location. It could be a small corner of your yard, a patio, or even an outside deck on the east side of a high-rise … [Read more...]
A Model for a Profitable Company Garden
Six years ago, Merit Medical Systems founder and CEO, Fred Lampropoulos, looked out his office window and watched as throngs of employees from the medical device company’s South Jordan campus walked across the street to a 3-acre farm to pick tomatoes and peppers thanks to an invitation from a local farmer. He saw the enthusiasm from his employees and an idea formed. In 2016, … [Read more...]
CHEMICAL REACTION: How Our Green Lawns are Hurting Us
Once upon a time, every American wanted the same thing: a house in the suburbs with a lush, green lawn surrounded by a white picket fence. It was the American dream. For many, it still is. But are all those green lawns really necessary nowadays, with their excessive water consumption and chemical runoff, and what are the alternatives? After WWII, chemical companies were … [Read more...]
Ogden Group Foodscapes Yards into Edible Gardens
Last year, John and Holly Trimble grew 1,200 pounds of fruits, vegetables and nuts on the quarter-acre lot their house sits on in Ogden — enough so that their family of four only had to buy one bag of carrots the entire season. With more than 30 fruit and nut trees, garden beds and space-saving techniques like arbors heaped with squash and other climbing plants, the … [Read more...]
Urban Homesteading: Divest from Wall Street, Invest in Local Food
Big tech is censoring us, tracking us, selling our personal data to corporations to advertise to us more efficiently. We buy everything on Amazon, book our hotels on Expedia and rooms on AirB&b, get around on Uber and get all our news from YouTube and Facebook. We make Silicon Valley executives and Wall Street investors insanely rich, while our local small businesses and … [Read more...]