Edible and Medicinal Plant Database (the best!)

"There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world yet fewer than 20 species now provide 90% of our food. However, there are hundreds of less well known edible plants from all around the world which are both delicious and nutritious." - Plants For A Future database website... Last week I wrote a quick post about the tonifying and nutritional value of the three most common 'weeds' found in my North Texas garden: dandelion, henbit and chickweed. Primrose, pictured here, is another 'weed' in our Texas lawns, but because it is pretty, most...

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Weeds: Eat The "Enemy" ?

Each spring a war is waged across America: swords are drawn (hoes, tillers), weapons are gathered (chemical weapons of the most toxic sorts: Roundup, Atrazine, whatever is in 'weed and feed' formulas), and lines are drawn: homeowners and gardeners prepare to seek and destroy every 'weed' in their path. A weed is really just a plant growing someplace it isn't wanted- after all an oak tree is a weed if it pops up in the vegetable garden! Some weeds are actually beneficial to the garden. For example (see in photo above) - vetch, a legume, which reduces...

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Bottle Trees by Forgotten Works are now available:)

As our living gallery and ever-expanding gardens continue to grow, "Tupelo" - the 20 foot steel bottle tree and trellis - remains the centerpiece at Forgotten Works... As a child growing up in The South (caps intended of course), I was amazed and fascinated by the legend of bottle trees. After travelling rural roads to and from the Blue Ridge, I would beg my parents to let me make one in our yard. I suspect the Home Owner's Association didn't share my vision or imagination;) Tupelo was built by my darling husband, Eddie, two summers ago while I...

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Livet hemma (Life at home)

: : inspiration straight from the designers at IKEA. Here is Ikea's own blog .livet hemma. with lots of amazing inspiration from their designers, stylists, editors and more. Enj...

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Vegetable Gardens: Spring 2011 Style Sampler

Need a little inspiration for your vegetable garden design? Look no further! Warning: images like these are pure garden porn - and while they haven't been airbrushed per se, remember that they DO capture gardens 'at their finest'... on any given day, these gardens, like yours and mine, can be found with the proverbial 'curlers in their hair' (and maybe some saggy melons, too)...Above: a small urban lot used 100%I love these flip top cold frames that fit perfectly over the uniformly sized raised beds. This one is for the industrious, the imaginative,...

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Stockholm home

: : love this wonderful Stockholm home bursting with colors and patterns. Everything feels so very Swedish. And what a beautiful happy family! From Swedish Design magazine .family livi...

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Eat This Law: Home Owners Associations vs. Homestead Efforts

Home Owner's Associations can set rules to prevent the house-next-door from growing a sofa on the porch and help protect your investment,,, but what happens when the regulations work against your backyard homestead visions?We have a friend who owns a small, family pizza place here in our little country town. They don't deliver, but we like their hand made crusts and the fact that they use local, seasonal vegetables in their dishes as often as possible. When we have extra peppers, tomatoes, basil or other garden goodies, it isn't unusual to work...

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Pies Gone Wild

When the blackberry bushes arrived last week, we just had to jump ahead and try out some new twists on old classics! The following recipe was inspired by Jean Johnson's Measure Free Hippie Kitchen cook books. Confident enough to start playing, I looked up all the crust and filling recipies I could find, and came up with reliable ratios for ingredients which can be mixed and matched to create delicious, healthy pies and tarts for any season or taste!I admit Jean is a much more experiencedmeasure-free cook, and encourage everyone to check out her...

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Me=featured designer on .from sthlm.

: : I am incredibly proud to announce that I am this month's featured Swedish designer on .from Sthlm..From Sthlm. is an online webshop that was started two years ago and has since featured over twenty different independent Swedish designers, Lotta Kuhlhorn and Mrs Murphy are among a few of my favorites on the list.Every month a new designer is featured and a limited amount of their products are sold through the website. Tiffany who runs the site also shares an interview with each designer on her blog. Her list of featured designers is very impressive...

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from Scandinavia with love

: : found a new Scandinavian blog chock full with inspiration! Please visit .from Scandinavia with love. to see more wonderful photos of Scandinavian hom...

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color at ikea family live

: : here comes some interior inspiration from .Ikea family live.  this colorful home in northern Portugal is fantastic! it's totally my style, mixing lots of bright colors and patterns. it makes me happy to look at these phot...

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