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Planting Potatoes

Planting Potatoes

Potatoes like to go into a cool soil. It is said that it is time to plant the potatoes when the dandelions begin to bloom. I like to “green” the potatoes for a week or two before planting. This is accomplished by placing them, right side up, in a bright, but not sunny, location. You…

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Planting Veggies Inside

Planting Veggies Inside

Planting veggies inside in order to transplant them outside when in season is tricky. For one thing, you definitely need a greenhouse or a truly southern window (or grow lights) for them to be able to get enough Sun. if you are new to gardening, let the nurseries do it for you. However, if you…

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The Importance of Organ Meats

The Importance of Organ Meats

Nearly all traditional cultures valued organ meats. They were often the first parts eaten of any animals that they ate because of their ability to build reserves of strength and vitality. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we have lost the flavor for these things and they are exceptionally difficult to find. Consider, though, that these meats…

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The Microbiome

The Microbiome

We human beings are a curious lot. We want to know where things come from, how they work and what they are good for. So we study. We evaluate. We do trials. And we discover many things along the way. Quite a while ago, we discovered genes. These inherent biological traits make us susceptible to…

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Planting Garlic

Planting Garlic

Garlic isn’t really like most of the crops. It actually never stops growing. Planted in the fall, it will begin its process immediately, continue under the snow and grow until it is ready to harvest in July. It is actually one of the easier things to grow as it has few diseases and insects don’t…

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Purslane: Free Food

Purslane: Free Food

I know that I have written about purslane before, but I thought that it deserved a second look. This is a “weed” that appears every year in my garden in spite of the fact that I have never planted it. It comes up everywhere. Most people with gardens will recognize it as one of the…

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Time to Plan the Garden

Time to Plan the Garden

While winter isn’t quite through with us, spring really is right around the corner. Days are getting longer, bitter cold has lost its grip and garden catalogs fill our mailboxes. Soon we’ll be involved with our spring cleaning, readying the lawn furniture and digging out the hoses. If you haven’t plotted the garden plan or…

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Turmeric

Turmeric

Turmeric has long been used in Ayurvedic medicine. This traditional Indian methodology uses plants for most of its healing and turmeric is often prescribed. Some recent research is now indicating that this particular spice may have been the “gold” given to the Christ child along with myrrh and frankincense by the Wise Men. It is…

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Freezing Broccoli

Freezing Broccoli

Farm stands and gardens are bountiful at this time of year. Harvests are flowing and farmers sell their produce at bargain prices. This is a great time to take advantage and get some things into the freezer. The veggies are truly fresh and, if you buy locally, you know where they come from. All vegetables…

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Freezing Corn

Freezing Corn

For all of the things that I do in the summer, freezing corn is the biggest bang for the buck. It doesn’t take very long, it is reasonably priced and I get to enjoy beautiful sweet corn all year long. I don’t grow corn myself as it is important to have a big “stand” to…

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French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

French onion soup is a perennial favorite. It’s rich, hardy and delicious. Ideally, the flavors are complex and well mixed—this occurs better if it is made the day before it is eaten. My mother, who was of French descent, swore that real French onion soup was made with turkey stock. Most chefs use beef stock….

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Celeste Will Be At Wise Traditions 2016

Celeste Will Be At Wise Traditions 2016

This is the best conference to learn about real foods. The meals are also amazing…I wouldn’t miss it! Come see Celeste at the 17th Annual Conference of the Weston A. Price Foundation Montgomery, Alabama November 11-14. “NUTRITION FOR ALL SEASONS OF LIFE” Friday, November 11th through Sunday, November 13th Plus additional sessions on Monday, November…

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Heirloom Tomatoes

Heirloom Tomatoes

One of everyone’s favorite garden vegetables is the tomato. Technically a fruit, tomatoes from the back yard are like manna from heaven. Sweet, juicy, delectable and indescribably delicious, a home grown tomato is like nothing else under the Sun. It’s often the main reason that people begin to garden. Over the years, tomatoes have been…

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Making Garlic Powder

Making Garlic Powder

Much of the garlic powder in the supermarket comes from China and its safety is uncertain. This is a great time of year to make your own. Farmers may give you a discount for a large purchase—it’s a good idea to ask. If you grow your own, even better. After the garlic has been harvested…

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Cutworms

Cutworms

Cutworms are my least favorite insect. I despise them more than mosquitoes, black flies or deer flies (a close second). They live under the soil during the day. Then they come up at night and take one bite of a plant right where that plant goes into the ground, killing it. Back down into the…

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Winter Sowing

Winter Sowing

My friend, Jackie Caserta, told me that she had come across a very interesting idea about sowing seeds. A woman by the name of Trudi Davidoff claims that she sows many seeds outside in the winter. She says that they do better than any that she starts inside to later transplant into the garden. So…

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My Favorite Catalogs

My Favorite Catalogs

Seed catalogs are wonderful fonts of information and inspiration. Often, beautiful color pictures make the mouth water with anticipation and details are given about planting specifics and variety differences. And, they are free! There are dozens—if not hundreds—of seed catalogs available. Companies like to entice consumers with platitudes like “easy to grow” or “award winner.”…

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Saving Beet Greens

Saving Beet Greens

Leafy greens are really good for us. They are high in vitamins and minerals and provide lots of fiber as well. So it might be wise for us to save the greens when putting the beets in the root cellar. Last year was the first time that I saved my beet greens. The days that…

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Tomato Juice

Tomato Juice

I was supposed to teach a canning class yesterday but not enough people signed up for it. I suspect that the weather was too nice—a beautiful late summer day. Since I had already ordered a box of organic tomatoes from my local farm, I decided to make some tomato juice.

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Purslane

Purslane

Purslane is a common garden weed that is probably the most nutritious item in your garden. It originally came from India and escaped into backyards everywhere. It has fourteen times the Omega-3 fatty acids of spinach as well as six times the vitamin E. Its betacarotene levels are seven times higher than carrots.

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Turmeric Sausage

Turmeric Sausage

Turmeric is really good for us. It’s active, healthy ingredient is curcumin which has been shown to be an antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, respiratory system protector and immune system aid. There is a specific way to get the most out of turmeric. First, it’s properties come alive when it is heated. Secondly, a bit of fat…

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Ketchup

Ketchup

Condiments have been part of our diets for a very long time. However, our ancestors, without access to refrigeration, fermented all of their condiments. Mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, relishes and sauerkraut were routinely subjected to this form of preservation. What they maybe didn’t know was that the fermentation of their condiments gave them tremendous health benefits….

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Bone Broth Soup

Bone Broth Soup

Bone broth soup is extremely good for us. I discovered over thirty years ago that if my husband, Bob, and I have two servings of my home made bone broth soup a week, we have no problems with our joints. If I forget, my knees really bother me. So we religiously eat and drink our…

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Avocados

Avocados

Avocados are quite good for us. They are a wonderful fat for our brains and our bodies. One avocado has twice the potassium as a banana and they are also very high in fiber, vitamins K, B5, B6, C and folate. They also help the body absorb fat-soluble nutrients such as the carotenes.

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Book Launch

Book Launch

Welcome to the launch of my new book, “Celeste’s Garden Delights: Discover the Many Ways a Garden Can Nurture You.” It’s been a long time coming. From the day a year and a half ago when three different people asked me to write this book (the last one begging me) to the finished product, there…

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Growing Onions

Growing Onions

February is the month to begin planting onions. They are quite easy to grow from seeds if you have a sunny window. Get the best potting soil that you can find (ask at your local nursery) and fill the tray about 2/3 full of it. It’s a good idea to blend in some soil amendments…

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Time to Buy Seeds

Time to Buy Seeds

Seed catalogues are filling the mailboxes and it’s time to look through them and order your favorite varieties. There is actually quite a bit of information in these missives and you can learn a lot about gardening by spending time perusing them. Most will tell you how to grow different varieties, how long it takes…

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Book Review–Heal Your Gut Cookbook

Book Review–Heal Your Gut Cookbook

Book Review The HEAL YOUR GUT cookbook Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Intestinal Health Using the GAPS Diet Hilary Boynton and Mary G. Brackett Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont, 302 pages. This is one unbelievably awesome book. It is brilliantly organized, beautifully photographed and very easy to understand. They start by telling Hilary…

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Planting Mache

Planting Mache

Mache is an extremely nutritious green that can be added to salads during the winter months. Here, in the northeastern U.S. where it is cold (and frozen), mache can be grown in a sunny window inside. This vegetable actually likes the cold—it won’t germinate until temperatures stay consistently below 70 degrees F. So it is…

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Time to Buy!

Time to Buy!

The Harvest Moon happens in September for a reason. Farmers everywhere (in the Northern Hemisphere) are gathering the fruits of their labor and stocking up their store shelves or bringing it to their Farmer’s Markets. Many will sell 25 or 50 pound bags of potatoes or onions that will keep all winter at bargain prices.

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