Rachel Butler's Blog

I blinked and Spring was gone!

wow. it's been several months since my last post. That post was begging for Spring to get here. Evidently, it came and went in a month. The result has been a very, very early summer for us Texans and a long hot one to boot!

I had a few tomatoes. Luckily, I have the friendship pleasure of a real tomato guru who is bound to the cubicle across from me in our "corporate day jobs". He shared an assortment of heirloom tomato seeds.

Many changes to this…

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Added by Rachel Butler on July 29, 2011 at 5:30pm — 1 Comment

Spring.... Where are you? I am ready!

I found out this fall that I am not a winter gardener. No matter how much I bundle up, nothing, not even my love of garden can pull me out of the toastiness of my small home.

I dream of summertime gardening...walking, barefooted around my yard, feeling the moist soil beneath my feet. It makes me feel connected to the earth. I miss the late evening light that I garden by and the radiating warmth of the soil. My wonderful friend Paige Hill,…

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Added by Rachel Butler on January 25, 2011 at 1:22pm — No Comments

FOOGS, UP and Austin Growers Guild Mixer - Friday, July 30 - 5pm

Who? FOOGS, The Austin Growers Guild, Urban Patchwork and friends!

What? Happy Hour Social…

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Added by Rachel Butler on July 26, 2010 at 4:33pm — No Comments

Welcome to New Members and Permaculture Enthusiasts

The last month has been an incredible one for FOOGS. We welcome all the new-comers with open arms. I wanted to share a little bit about this group and what we are doing on a local and national level.

First of all, how to contact us.

Of course here at www.foogs.org. Please share with friends, we can use your support!
We have over 3,360 members on Facebook -…

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Added by Rachel Butler on July 18, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

10 Culinary Herbs & Their Medicinal Uses

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Added by Rachel Butler on July 15, 2010 at 6:00pm — No Comments

Optimize Your Garden for Low Water Use

I like this article- informative. Credit goes to http://greenthumbgardening.org/garden-conservation/optimize-your-garden-for-low-water-use/. Thanks! - Rache

Conserving water resources has become important in many areas, and being a gardener has been rather stressful in recent times, as many areas are…

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Added by Rachel Butler on July 10, 2010 at 8:00am — No Comments

Harvesting the Urban Fruit Forest

When I first heard the words "fruit forest" it made me think of some fairy-filled magical land with the branches of the trees bowing, heavy with fruit. Magical and wonderful. Kind of how I remember my grandpa Butler's garden. It was filled with orange, grapefruit, loquat, kumquat, banana, papaya and mulberry trees. I'm sure I've missed a tree or two in there somewhere...oh yeah, peach.

Now, as an adult, I sometimes get strange looks when I stop by a mulberry tree on Ladybird Lake (Town… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on June 25, 2010 at 2:21pm — 1 Comment

Dick Pierce Talk this Weekend!

An interesting, unusual, unique opportunity for Gardeners, Sustainability Folks, the Green Team, the Environmentally-minded, and their children, grandchildren,.....parents, grand-parents and friends. Come and see for yourself - Saturday, June 19. See Nationally acclaimed photographer, Chris Jordan's Beautiful, Powerful, Moving, Alarming Photo Exhibit of the Waste Stream in America at the Austin Museum of Art - Downtown at…

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Added by Rachel Butler on June 16, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Introducing the Tomato Worm Avenger! - Steven Hebbard

This past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Steven Hebbard and learning more about The Karpophoreō Project.

What I didn't know when I met Steven was that he is quite the ham on camera! I wanted to share his most recent video on the Tomato Worm!

Great stuff and please, please check out and support The Karpophoreō Project. Also take some… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on June 14, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Barr Mansion Fire

I can't say it better than Brad Stufflebeam from Home Sweet Farm:

Our hearts go out to the McAfee family at Barr Manision who had a fire yesterday at their organic ball room, destroying the unique timber frame building. True champions of local/organic food! Our community stands by them to help.…

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Added by Rachel Butler on June 10, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

A Guide to getting your Compost on!

According to the United States EPA, yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 26 percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream. That's a lot of waste to send to landfills when it could become useful and environmentally beneficial compost instead! Sometimes it's hard to know how to get started! Here is a quick guide to getting started!… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on June 5, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

Composting Tips

Some great little tips from one of my favorite sites. http://www.composting101.com

1. Grass clippings add necessary nitrogen to a compost pile, but be sure

to mix with the "brown" materials that add carbon. Both are necessary

for quick decomposition and rich compost. Piles made up of just grass

will compact, slow down and start to stink.

2. Do not compost fats, pet droppings, or animal products. They will attract… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on May 31, 2010 at 9:28pm — No Comments

STUDIES SAY: Update on CO2 and a report on Pesticide ADHD link

Increased Levels of CO2 Threaten Quality of Food Crops, Study Says

Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could reduce the protein content of crop plants by as much as 20 percent, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of California, Davis say high CO2 levels interfere with the ability… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on May 20, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments

The Impatient Gardener: Lettuce Lessons Learned

So... My garden is lovely and out of control....just like I like it. My pride and joy until last week was my lettuce... so beautifully bountiful! Then I noticed it kept bolting on me. It would shoot up into these glorius stalks. So I let it run free... it is after all natural. As you can see from my garden there is really no rhyme or reason or order to my planting madness.

So I harvested a huge bunch of lettuce and began to prep it for the mother of all salads. I took the usual taste… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on May 20, 2010 at 2:30pm — 2 Comments

Garden Growth Slowed? Try an organic solution.

What a beautiful Spring my friends! We have had some incredible weather in the Central Texas Region. It was a little chilly so I was late in putting in some of the veggies I would have started in late February, early March. My stuff just sprung to life and has grown like gangbusters!! Some of my friends have begun to comment that the growth in the garden has slowed. This can be concerning, especially after seeing the massive growth right after a seedling establishes itself. First, be gentle… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on May 10, 2010 at 10:00am — 5 Comments

Composting 101 and Dirt-the movie

I find myself in my new home. I live with two male roommates, like a reverse Three's Company. The boys have really gotten into the garden. The one I'll call Chrissy was floored by the idea of eating out of the garden. My favorite comment when I first harvested some lettuce was, "So, I can just come out here and grab a piece of lettuce and put it on my sandwich?" So now that the boys are on board with the garden, I'll be setting up my compost bin/pile. I did a little research and… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on April 21, 2010 at 10:43am — 1 Comment

Spring 2010 Herbal Apprenticeship Class

I met a great lady, Ginger Webb, in permaculture class a couple of weeks ago and wanted to share information about her class. - Love-Rache

The Spring 2010 Herbal Apprenticeship is beginning, and Ginger is looking forward to getting outside with…

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Added by Rachel Butler on April 1, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

Gardening by Phases of the Moon - Full Moon Alert!

I love getting to know gardeners; whether novice or generational, they all have their little tricks of the trade. I remember my Grandma Garcia's tricks for rooting avocado seeds, toothpicks, correct positioning on her window sill and honestly...nearly stagnant water. In my permaculture class, one of the students was incorporating moonlight into her flow diagram. A flow diagram is charting movement over your land, water, soil, animals, sunlight and in this case moonlight.…

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Added by Rachel Butler on March 29, 2010 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Bio Dynamic Farming- What is it?

I was in permaculture class on Saturday and I heard the term BioDynamic Farming for the first time, so I wanted to do a little research. Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming with homeopathic composts that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs insofar as this… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on March 7, 2010 at 5:00pm — 3 Comments

Spring is coming, I promise :)

Today was a beautiful day in Austin, TX. We had a very late dusting of snow this past week. Austinites are like Bambi on a frozen pond on snow days; quite a sight. Of course, I could not help running out in it and playing a bit and more importantly bidding the cold winter a fond farewell. Having just returned from visiting my sister and family in Illinois, it really began to dawn on me how difficult it must be in colder climates to have to wait for Spring to spend time in the garden. I walked… Continue

Added by Rachel Butler on February 28, 2010 at 9:22pm — 1 Comment

Rachel Butler's Blog (27)

I blinked and Spring was gone!

Spring.... Where are you? I am ready!

FOOGS, UP and Austin Growers Guild Mixer - Friday, July 30 - 5pm

Welcome to New Members and Permaculture Enthusiasts

10 Culinary Herbs & Their Medicinal Uses

Optimize Your Garden for Low Water Use

Harvesting the Urban Fruit Forest

Dick Pierce Talk this Weekend!

Introducing the Tomato Worm Avenger! - Steven Hebbard

Barr Mansion Fire

A Guide to getting your Compost on!

Composting Tips

STUDIES SAY: Update on CO2 and a report on Pesticide ADHD link

Increased Levels of CO2 Threaten Quality of Food Crops, Study Says

The Impatient Gardener: Lettuce Lessons Learned

Garden Growth Slowed? Try an organic solution.

Composting 101 and Dirt-the movie

Spring 2010 Herbal Apprenticeship Class

Gardening by Phases of the Moon - Full Moon Alert!

Bio Dynamic Farming- What is it?

Spring is coming, I promise :)

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