We know that food, especially grown in our backyard gardens, is medicine. Eating fresh vegetables and fruit every day is fundamental to a healthy body and mind. 
 
Yet there are, of course, additional plants that have medicinal values beyond just being super nutritious. They help boost our immunity, soothe our throats, calm a fever, heal our skin, aid with insomnia and much more.  Just as growing our own food allows us to become more self-reliant, growing our own medicine gives us that same sense of agency.
 
If you’ve ever wanted to grow and make your own medicine, then my video today is for you. I’m very excited because this is the first video that I’ve made where I bring on a special guest! This past June, I had the pleasure of teaching a permaculture workshop at the Green Path Herb School in Missoula, Montana. While I was there, the co-director of the school, Elaine Sheff, kindly agreed to be interviewed.
 
As I explain in the video, Elaine is an herbalist extraordinaire, with thirty years of experience in the field.  Needless to say, I knew she was the one to ask about the top five medicinal plants to grow in cold climates. Not only does Elaine share and explain the uses of these plants, if you stick around for the entire video, you’ll also learn about 4 additional ‘weeds’ that have so many beneficial properties. These are weeds that are most likely already growing in your yard.
 
I do have to apologize in advance for the audio in this video. Unfortunately, it’s not the greatest quality as we were having some issues. It was also related to the fact that Elaine’s beehives were buzzing like crazy! But I promise that if you stick with it, you'll learn a ton!
 
Then, I’d love to hear from you. What medicinal plants are you growing in your garden and which ones will you plant next growing season? Please share those in the comments below! 

This past fall, I was honored to be part of Samantha Bates student film thesis project on composting. In addition to a quick tour of my backyard composting operation, Samantha gives you a look into several fantastic initiatives that are happening in Bozeman. From the folks at YES Compost to Happy Trash Can to the Spring Creek Communal Garden, I'm honored to be included in this informative and inspiring short film. 

As a gardener, you may already compost, but I would encourage you to spread the word to those within your community who may not already. With curbside composting available in Bozeman, it's such a great way to cut down on waste, while contributing to soil health. 

Check out the video below!

Needless to say, these cold temperatures haven't exactly been the most inspiring in terms of getting out in the garden this spring!

It's at times like these, when I'm still slipping on long underwear in the morning and donning my down jacket for the 8th month in a row that I so very much appreciate having a greenhouse. Even if just a little bit of light penetrates through the clouds, the temperatures in the greenhouse are going to be at least 10 to 20 degrees warmer than outside. 

Especially in our cold climate, the ability to extend our season and enjoy early and late season greens while giving our warm season crops a little more protection is really needed. Right now, I have an abundance of lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale, pea shoots, cilantro and dill in the greenhouse. Meanwhile, my cool season crops outside are fighting against the wind and the rain and planting tomatoes in my outdoor garden still seems like a pipe dream.

So check out my video below to learn some of the tips and tricks that I use in my greenhouse to maximize the space, minimize energy use, and mitigate pests and disease.

Then, I would love to hear from you. What season extension techniques and/or greenhouse tips and tricks do you use? Please share them in the comments below!

The promise of spring is in the air! I have tiny arugula, spinach, and lettuce seedlings coming up in the greenhouse and the snow is slowly melting off my annual garden beds. We've been pruning our trees in the food forest and I'll be tackling the berry bushes by the end of the week. I love this renewed sense of hope and possibility as we emerge from a long and cold winter. 

If you watched my Planting Calendar video a few weeks ago then you'll know that now is the time to start planting seeds indoors. In cold climates, we need to get a jumpstart on the season. We do this by starting some of our crops indoors so that they get to be big enough before moving them to our gardens outside. 

Starting seeds indoors can save you a lot of money in the long run as one packet of seeds can yield dozens of seedlings. Plus, you get to grow the varieties that you would like, rather than choosing from what the nursery has to offer. It's also rather nourishing to nurture and care for these beautiful green seedlings while it's still brown and snowy outside.

If you're excited about the prospect of a little indoor gardening then you'll want to check out my video today. In it, I go through the materials you'll need to start seeds indoors as well as the process that I use. So click on the video below to learn more!

As I write this, there's about 4 feet of snow piled against the south side of the greenhouse, the pond is almost completely obscured and the chickens are getting a little stir-crazy having been cooped up in their house. The thermometer reads 10 degrees F, which seems balmy compared to the subzero temperatures that we've been experiencing over the past couple of weeks.

But, believe it or not, it really is time to start planning for the growing season ahead. 

In my video today, I wanted to share one of the most useful resources I have in my vegetable gardening toolkit - the Planting Calendar. In gardening, especially in cold climates, timing is everything. This Planting Calendar will give you a good guideline for what to plant when as we move into spring. It will also give you an idea of when to start your seeds indoors. Click on the video to learn more and then download my calendar below!

​Click here to download my Planting Calendar. Remember, use this as a guide but be sure to check with your gardening neighbors and friends about dates that may be more specific to your site. 
​
​Have questions? Please ask them in the comments below!

There’s a philosophical and a practical side to gardening, “the why” we do it and then “the how.”
 
In most of my videos, I cover “the how” of gardening, giving you advice and recommendations on everything from ripening tomatoes, to composting, to establishing a food forest. And in the case of my video today, the Top 5 Seed Companies that I would recommend.
 
However, before you dive into watching, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about seeds, delving more into the philosophical, before you get to the practical.

In the chaos of early spring, I often take seeds for granted. I’m so focused on the “doing” aspect of gardening i.e. prep the soil, plant the seed, water, repeat, that I don’t spend too much time in contemplation mode.
 
When I allow myself to get quiet, to really consider the meaning and potential of seeds, it sort of blows me away. Every season, each tiny seed that I have in my hand holds the potential for generations of food. GENERATIONS.
 
Because if I continued to save the seed from those plants year after year, to cultivate varieties that do well in our cold climate, to share those seeds with my friends and neighbors and to have them do the same with different plants, then we start to move towards a truly local and resilient food system.
 
Of course, that’s how it used to be. In an age where we can walk into a grocery store and get whatever we crave on demand, we often forget how our ancestors were inextricably tied to their food and to their land. Only since the advent of industrial agriculture has this connection been severed, taken from the realm of the commons and put under the control of the corporations.
 
Fundamentally, this is why I have a garden. Yes, the fresh tomatoes are delicious but for me, it’s about reclaiming our food from the monocultures, the pesticides, and the chemical fertilizers that impoverish our soil, our health, and our communities.
 
Our food system has a long way to go in terms of seed banks in local communities across the country, each adapted to that particular region. In the meantime, My Top 5 Seed Company Recommendations are good go-to places to get your seed. The first two companies are regional sources for seeds and the next two are companies who are at the forefront of seed diversity, seed saving, and reintroducing heirloom varieties.
 
As we retrain ourselves as agricultural workers, as we rediscover truths that used to be so much a part of the fabric of what it was to be a human being, we start to appreciate the ‘little things’, like seeds, that are actually quite significant. They are what connect us to the earth, to our food, to our bodies, and to our spirit.
 
So though I may talk about the practical in this video, I encourage you to come back to the philosophical, to the heart of gardening, and to the potential of the seed this gardening season. ​

I'm not sure about you but for me, composting in the winter time is a bit of a challenge. Though it's possible to insulate an outdoor pile and add high nitrogen materials to keep the pile cooking, in my opinion, it's not really worth the time and energy.

After I've thrown the kitchen scraps that I can to my chickens, I do two things with the remaining material:

1. I throw it in my outside compost bin and add a layer of leaves (which I've collected in the fall). This material then freezes and will be available for me to build a pile once it thaws in the spring.
2. I have a vermicomposting bin indoors where worms break down my scraps into nutrient-rich soil. 

What's vermicomposting you may ask? If you're unfamiliar with the term, you'll want to watch my video today. In it, I give you the ins and outs of vermicomposting a.k.a. composting with worms. So check it out here or below. Vermicomposting gives you the option of continuing the composting process in spite of subzero temperatures outside. 

This video is actually from the Building Healthy Soil Module of my Online Edible Backyards Series (which is available at a 25% discount here).

In having a few options for composting, I am following the permaculture principle of 'each function is supported by multiple elements'. In other words, I want to compost and cut down on my waste. How do I do that? I have three different ways: feeding scraps to my chickens, an outdoor compost pile, and an indoor worm bin. Make sense? So when one option, like the outdoor pile, is unavailable, then I have a few other options to fulfill this function of zero waste. Building redundancy in your system increases your resilience. 

If worms kind of make you squirm and/or you don't want to don your parka and trudge through the snow to your compost pile, then I also want to let you know about the business, Happy Trash Can. Happy Trash Can offers a residential curbside composting service. Even if you don't need this service yourself, I'd love it if you passed along this information to your neighbors and friends. Learn more about them here. 

Whether you have an outdoor compost pile, an indoor worm bin, or have someone picking up your kitchen scraps, let's all work together to divert as much food waste from our landfill as possible!

Enjoy the video,
Kareen

Happy New Year!
 
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season filled with meaningful connection, delicious food, and some down time.
 
Though I always like to enter a new year with hope, energy, and positivity, I have to say that listening to the news every day often counters those feelings. The top news headlines today include the US government shutdown, the opioid crisis, glaciers retreating in Central Asia, and the attack on US troops in Syria. Not exactly uplifting stories.
 
I have often wondered what this world would look like and how different we would all feel, if the morning news included reports of land restoration, of building community, of job creation in a green economy, of local farmers growing organic food. I know these stories are happening, they just aren’t reported nearly as often.
 
That’s why I wanted to share the three inspiring books that I'm reading this winter. When the good news doesn’t come to us, we have to seek it out.

Not to worry, I also read novels, but these are the books that have me inspired in the new year to continue helping people grow gardens and design self-reliant homesteads.

The prognosis can often seem pretty bleak, but these three books are great reminders that there are so many victories happening in the world that go unnoticed.
 
We know that if we live from fear, we can be controlled by it. Yet if we have the sense that the majority of humanity is working towards a better future (which it is), then we have agency, we have motivation, and we have hope.
 
I hope you’ll continue to join me on this journey.
 
Happy reading!
 
Kareen

Again, if you want more information about the course, click here. 

Or, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me via e-mail (info@brokengroundpermaculture.com) or phone (406.600.7881). I am happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have.

Make the decision to transform you land and your life. Join me for the course! 

​Kareen

If you have been following me for awhile, you know that my family and I love garden tomatoes. In fact, sometimes I think it's the only reason why I have an annual garden. Every year, I start tomatoes from seed, babying the seedlings throughout the spring, and then planting at least 30 plants in the ground over Memorial Day.

Looking back, It's strange to think that as a kid, I didn't like fresh tomatoes at all. However, I now attribute that to the fact that grocery-bought tomatoes are often mealy and fairly tasteless. I'll admit it, since having a garden, I've become a tomato snob and resist buying tomatoes from the grocery store after we've run out at home. That's why preserving tomatoes, so that we can enjoy them well into the winter, is so important to me.

Canning tomatoes, for many, is their go-to method of preserving. However, the time and energy that it takes to can, not to mention the disaster I make of my kitchen in the process, makes it my least favorite way to put up tomatoes. So check out my video below to discover the top three methods I use to enjoy garden fresh tomatoes when there is a foot of snow on the ground. These methods are simple, quick and easy. 

How do you preserve tomatoes? I'd love it if you shared your techniques in the comments below!