I would embed this on the blog if Typepad were a little more flexible with its formatting. I lived on the Gulf Coast of Texas for 7 years, and while the region's landscape has something to be desired (if you like mountains and hills), the…
I was driving down an urban street near Hamilton and Indiana on the north side of Spokane on Friday when I saw the chicken tractor pictured to the right in a front yard next to the sidewalk. I knocked on the door to find out…
Picture: Wild Bolete mushrooms gathered with some friends last summer at Mt. Spokane. It's mushroom season again. In case you missed it, Michael Pollan is out with his latest article at the NY Review of Books. The article is a good summary of where things…
Picture: some variation on glacier lily wildflower. It has always intuitively made sense to me that spending time out in the garden is good for my health and general well being, especially for reducing stress. Well, it turns out that there may be a scientific…
There is a fun new online map application that allows you to create a personal map of the places you've visited in the world or in the US or India. I modified it a little to indicate the different countries I recollect eating food from.…
Early season gardening can be a challenge on your palate. Yes, you can grow an abundance of radishes, but we've never been big fans of the tangy little balls of fire which is why we've never bothered to grow them. This year, I planted parsnips…
Panera Bread, an emerging chain restaurant behemoth, has jumped on the "pay what you want" idea with some concept stores where instead of paying a bill customers are told to "take what you want, leave your fair share." As the NY Time reports it; Some…
If you're out and about in the wilderness this weekend in the Pacific Northwest you might want to keep an eye out for the elusive chocolate lily (purple lily, mission bell, Fritillaria lanceolata). It is actually quite common but is very difficult to see because…
A reader from Brazil recently made a keen observation about the infographic chart on food expenditures. He wondered if the high percentage of grocery purchases vs. dining out purchases in Los Angeles isn't so much because of health consciousness, which the chart suggests, but rather…
Below is a story that ran on KREM news last night regarding the Property Tax legislation that passed a few months ago allowing non-profits to host markets and avoid losing their property tax exemption. There are some great live shots of the Millwood Farmers' Market…
The folks at Greenopia have named Washington the greenest state in the nation in their recent rankings.Environmental Positives: Washington has better than average air and water quality according to data from the EPA and American Lung Association. Washington has a very good recycling rate at…
Market poster by Gage Taylor, 2nd Grade at Seth Woodard Elementary. The Millwood Farmers' Market has its grand opening today, May 19 from 3-7pm. Here's a preview of the line-up for this season. We've got around 24 vendors confirmed for opening day. Pacific Produce from…
This is a great infographic from the folks at bundle. ...we examined major U.S. cities spending habits when it comes to groceries and restaurants. Of note: • Austin, TX, residents spend almost twice ($6,301) the US annual average for dining out. • In fact, five…
Picture: Kids playing in between the mounds of newly planted pumpkins at the Pumpkin Patch.We held the Grand Opening for the Pumpkin Patch Community Garden on Saturday and it is exciting to see the boxes start to fill up. We also planted the pumpkin patch…
(Here's another in this week's series of re-posts. This one, titled "Busted!" was from March 3 2008 after I had just been busted for eating through our big bag of chocolate chips. Ironically just a few weeks ago Nancy again hid the bag of chocolate…
Here's another re-post from early in our year long experiment about how we figured out how to make our own butter.We discovered in our research of Inland Northwest dairy producers, that there is no local butter. Darigold comes from west of the mountains and I'm…
I'm slammed this week with deadlines so I have little time to post. I've been looking over some of the old posts during the year of our consumption experiment and this one from five months in grabbed my attention. The original post with comments is…
I'm no social media expert, but I did figure out how to add the Facebook "Like" button to the blog. The standard format is for a wide side bar so I had to simplify it to make it fit my format. It is in the…
The wildflowers are shifting from yellow to blue. Some of them look kind of purple but my wildflower book categorizes them as blue. The Common camas is the breviflora variety (Camassia breviflora). Upon seeing an abundance of camas flowers on the Lewis and Clark expedition,…
Picture: Large leaf basil inter-planted with tomatoes from last year's garden. I checked out the weather forecast in the Spokane area and it looks like we're going to have temps at night above 40 degrees through May 19th. If that holds true it's pretty much…
GOOD has a great photo spread of an urban garden;Over the last few years, urban gardening has grown increasingly more prominent—as an emblem of demand for healthier, more natural food; as a centerpiece of community-minded interaction; and as a means of cultivating beautifully functional public…
I reported earlier about a community based Whitworth theatre class that has been developing a play on food and food systems. In preparation they read Omnivore's Dilemma, met with local farmers' and I went in to share about our experience of eating locally for a…
Below are pictures sent in by a reader from their central North Carolina garden. I have to say I'm a little jealous seeing that rich red soil and their row crops are already coming in nicely. Folks in southern climates sure do get a head…
Asparagus will start showing up in abundance at area farmers' markets in a few weeks. Below is the recipe for Canning Pickled Asparagus from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Always use a trusted, scientifically based home canning recipe and never improvise the recipe.…
A recent report on efforts to control harmful "residues" in the US Beef supply has got me even more freaked out about eating a hamburger than I already was. Go here for one of my previous posts on problems with beef.The audit report assesses the…
The Year of Plenty blog was created by Craig Goodwin in the winter of 2008 to chronicle the experiences of his family as they sought to consume everything local, used, homegrown or homemade. That journey was a wonderful introduction to people and movements in the Spokane area who are seeking the welfare of the community through local foods, farmers markets, community gardens, sustainable transportation, and more fulfilling and just patterns of consumption. In 2009 and beyond the blog will continue to report on these relationships and practices, all through the eyes of a family with young children. Craig manages the Millwood Farmers' Market, is a Master Food Preserver and Pastor at Millwood Presbyterian Church. Craig can be reached at goody2230@gmail.com