Blog
Elegy Written In A NH Barnyard: The Passing of Summer
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The pecking hens winds slowly o'er the lea, The groundskeeper homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the farm to darkness and to me. Now fades ... Read More
Organic Vegetable Tsunami Report
Until this week, I was unaware that northern New Hampshire was blessed with a Tsunami Season. I'd heard of Mud Season. Hell, I survived one already. Black Fly Season...old hat ... Read More
Art in the Age at the Kennett Square Farmer’s Market
Art in the Age ROOT had a blast this past Friday at the Kennett Square Farmer's Market - Buy Fresh, Buy Local Festival! Fully stocked with our samples of Wild ... Read More
Adventures in Agronomy: First Vegetable Harvest!
Pictured: Cucumber Hugs This morning was spent reveling in utter disbelief and inexplicable relief that the shrubbery in the garden is now VEGETABLE-LADEN! After suffering from a week of ... Read More
Philadelphia Orchard Project Music Festival & Fundraiser
Tomorrow the annual Philadelphia Orchard Project Music Festival & Fundraiser will take place at Liberty Lands in Northern Liberties. The festival features musical performances by Philadelphia bands The Mean, Betty ... Read More
Come Out and Visit ROOT at a Farmer’s Market Near You this Weekend!
At Art in the Age we love to support our local farmer's markets. We love it so much in fact, that this weekend we're doubling our efforts! This Friday, July 16th ... Read More
The First Fruits at The Farm: “Stay Gold, Berry-Joy, Stay Gold”
New Hampshire's first fruit is redHer tastiest hue, it's said. Her early leaves are berries; One needs a bucket to carry Then pink subsides to ruby. And fingers rose to duty, So we ... Read More
Aquaponics: The Future of Sustainable Agriculture
Aquaponics is the sustainable method of combining aquaculture (raising fish) and hydroponics (growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions in water) to produce organic food year round. This process dates back to 1,000 ... Read More
The Food Trust’s Headhouse Farmers’ Market - July 18th
The Food Trust’s Headhouse Farmers’ Market Sunday, July 18th Starting at 10AM Visit ROOT at The Food Trust Headhouse Farmers’ Market, which strives to make healthy food available to all. Working ... Read More
GARDEN UPDATE: Of Silver Bells, Cockle Shells, Pretty Maids, etc.
Q: Robin McDowell, Armed With A Trowel, How Does Your Garden Grow? A. With coyote pee... (a natural predator deterrent) and greenery... (Johnny's Seeds Wild Arugula, to be exact) ...and fluffy cats trampling ... Read More
2010 Pennsylvania Renewable Energy Festival.
Every year since 2006, hundreds have gathered at Kutztown State University for the Pennsylvania Renewable Energy Festival. This three-day festival, from September 17-19, features workshops and demonstrations of the latest ... Read More
The Country Bizarre was an independent publication created by Andy Pittaway and Bernard Scofield in the early 70′s. Each issue featured original poetry, gardening advice, and outdoorsy how-to’s; not ... Read More
GARDEN UPDATE: “Ode On A Greenish Thumb”
THOU still unravish'd seed of quietness, Thou foster-child of Soil and slow Time, Sylvan landscape, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What ... Read More
Pete’s Greens: “At The Heart of The Locavore Movement”
Pete's Greens from Driven Studio on Vimeo. Read More
Hay Season 2010: We Get Organic With A Little Help From Our Friends
We are so stoked to be working with our neighbors at Schoolhouse Farm to restore the hay fields at the farm using best and organic practices, beginning this summer! Norman/Wendy/Schoolhouse ... Read More
Supper Restaurant’s Mitch Prensky: In A Pickle
Before the luxury of refrigeration, and before we had the ability to source produce from around the world, pickling and preserving made it possible to serve zesty seasonal fruits and ... Read More
Grocery Store Truths: Organic Corporations
Ever wonder who owns the farms producing the certified organic products you buy at most grocery stores? Chances are it’s no longer the family farm that’s been passed down through ... Read More
In Season Alert: Fiddlehead Ferns
Spring is here, and that can only mean one thing, fiddlehead ferns! Often compared to asparagus in flavor and texture, fiddleheads are deep or bright green, tightly coiled and no ... Read More
Just In! New Colors of the Utility Canvas Apron at Art in the Age!
For those of you who missed out on Mother's Day, or if you are way ahead-of-the-curve for Father's Day, check out our stock of NEW colors in the perennially popular ... Read More
Urban CSA Update: West Philly!
Community Supported Agriculture programs have been gaining momentum in Philadelphia, and have become a great way for city dwellers to access local produce and meat straight from the farm. In ... Read More
The Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm Presents “Art of Homesteading” in June!
Photos from REMICKMUSEUM.ORG Attn: Tamworth-ians, New Hampshire-ites, and New Englanders! Join the Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm on June 16 from 5-7 pm for the opening ceremony for their new ... Read More
The Busiest Day in May: Start A Project, Salute The Armed Forces, Observe Moths
There is no such thing as a lazy Saturday during this busy month of Springtime haps! Check out what's on the plate for today, May 15: - Best Day To Start ... Read More
Organic Farming for the World?
image from BUSINESSWEEK.COM Among the debates over the movement toward organic and sustainable farming, the most contentious refers to the movement's scalability – could it work for the whole world? Is ... Read More
Raspberry Reveries, Chapter 1: And So It Begins…
2 humans + 8 hours + 2 wheelbarrows + 1000 prickly dead canes + 1 deer tick incident = THE BEGINNING OF RASPBERRY SEASON 2010!!! In 3 months time, our freshly ... Read More
Gardening Reaches New Heights: Green Roofs In The City!
Take urban gardening to the next level...literally! There has been a recent rise in rooftop gardening, especially among city residents. Making the most of the limited residential space symptomatic of ... Read More
Piazza Artisan Market: Summer Edition Fashion Weekend
Saturday, May 15thh through Sunday, May 16th 150 designers and boutiques, 1 to die for trunk show, and The Piazza's very own fashion show, all within 30,00 square feet. Visit the Art ... Read More
The Perfect Gift for Mother’s Day at Art in the Age
Saturday, May 1st through Sunday May 23rd Stop into Art in the Age for the perfect gift for Mother’s Day. The store is chalk full of items like, Utility Cancas ... Read More
so much depends / upon / the white chickens
INSPIRATION: A-Frame Pasture Shelter featured in Backyard Poultry Magazine... OUR COOP COMIX: A Coop On Wheels! Imminent Omelets! THE PROCESS... Procure Lumber & Materials... 45 degree angle cuts... Assembling the A-frame... Height check... Pretty A's all in ... Read More
SPRING FARM UPDATE: These delights thy mind may move…
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.And we will sit upon compost heaps, Seeing ... Read More
Security and Adventure pt. 3: Travails, Fruition
Since our last, exuberant, update, our seedlings and their keepers have led increasingly precarious lives. A seedling's first weeks are fraught with peril. Too much water, too little water, to ... Read More
Urban Gardeners Meet Woolly Pocket
For any city dweller with an itchy green thumb, meet Woolly Pocket! Woolly Pockets are meant to be used both indoors and outdoors - equally perfect for any interior apartment space ... Read More
Native Plant Workshop at Art in the Age
What: Art in the Age Presents a lively workshop on native plants and the urban garden, led by Joanne Donohue, Manager of Land Restoration for the Schuylkill Center for Environmental ... Read More
Not seeing what you want at your local farmer’s market? Are there veggies you’d just like to grow yourself? This month’s issue of Grid Philly features some great tips on urban ... Read More
Fresh, affordable, local produce. Delivered straight to your doorstep. All summer long. Stopping pinching yourself, this is for real!! CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) are programs where you can purchase a share ... Read More
Security and Adventure: Spreading Our Seed
We have spread our seed. We have installed into the good earth the first kernels of future feasting. Our closet laboratory (link to previous installment) is finally ... Read More
Peepoo, and the Frontiers of Wastefulness
In the last few decades, the human race has made great strides to combat its unprecedented wastefulness, recycling, reducing, reusing, etc. Nonetheless, a final frontier has persisted unchallenged: that most ... Read More
Security and Adventure Redux: Beasts and Men
While humans presently constitute one-half of the Farm's permanent residents (two people, two cats), they are soon to be outnumbered. This is not sci-fi prognostication but a mere expansion of ... Read More
“Security and Adventure”: Adventures in Agronomy Part 1
"Security and adventure might be considered opposites in some situations, but the gardener who raises plants from seeds can experience both..." (The New Seed Starter's Handbook). At the AITA Farm we've ... Read More
Cold nights, sunny days...New Hampshire has begun to shake off its winter torpor. This particular weather pattern is also the harbinger of Maple Sugar season! The expansion and contraction caused by ... Read More
Peter Menzel’s “What the World Eats”
We've spent the last hour poring over a fascinating series on Time's website by the California photojournalist Peter Menzel. In 2005 Menzel took a photographic survey of the diets of ... Read More
After the holidays I had several empty bottles of ROOT on hand. In what might be called a Wardian moment, I wondered if the bottles would make suitable terrariums. ... Read More
Recipe from The Farm: ROOT Vegetable Soup
Blizzard conditions in Philly got you down? Cooped up inside? Oddly enough, the New Hampshire snowline is receding. So instead of shoveling, we celebrated by creating this savory soup. If you've ... Read More
The Compost Crusade Continues: Wilmington’s New Organic Recycling Center!
For those of you who attended the Vermicomposting Event at the Art In The Age Store in November (and those of us who are concerned citizens, interested in reducing our ... Read More
A Museum of Early American Tools…AITA-Farm-Style!
A recent article in The Inquirer ("They Dig Garden Tools" - 11/20/09) featured Harold Sweetman, Director of The Jenkins Arboretum, who is also a collector of "horticultural antiques." Stated more ... Read More
AITA Adventures Abroad: Discussing The Farm in Europe
Some entertaining tidbits from my recent trip across the pond...I was surprised and delighted to discover that at least the IDEA of the New American Organic "Farmer" seems to be ... Read More
Vermicomposting at Art in the Age
Vermicomposting at Art in the AgeUrban/Small space composting made easy Interested in greening your life by composting, but not sure how? Come to Art in the Age on November 18th at ... Read More
Blooming Glen Farm - CSA, Farmers’ Markets and Harvest Fests
Tom Murtha and Tricia Borneman have been farming together for seven years and have worked in all avenues of farming in CT, OR, NJ and PA. They have returned to ... Read More
VIDEO TOUR: The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Common Ground Fair!
A follow-up to last week's photo tour. See wool spinning in action, a walk through the poultry exhibition hall, and an Organic Farming Parade! Read More
PHOTO TOUR: The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Common Ground Fair!
En route to The MOFGA Common Ground Fair... Maine is more sparse than New Hampshire (if you can believe it!). Great, vast old properties like this one... Walking with the crowds across ... Read More
The maple trees are blushing red everywhere you look. Mornings and evenings are chilly and crisp. And so we celebrate the advent of autumn in New England with warm mulled ... Read More
ROOT & Maine ROOT: A Mix n’ Match Made in Heaven (aka New England)
Call me a hopeless romantic, but I've always secretly retained this idea that Prince Charming actually existed. And furthermore, that Prince Perfectly-Chiseled-Cheekbones-Who-Is-Also-An-Able-Carpenter, my island in an ocean of worldly chaos, ... Read More
“Livestock” Update: Ah, The Circle of Life!
Chai caught her first mouse last week. This event was the source of great pride, as well as confusion (on both Chai and my own parts). At 10-weeks old, Chai was ... Read More
The Beginning of a Beautiful Organic Garden at The Farm
A Nursery (no pun intended) Rhyme for Tamworth, NH Robin, RobinAccustomed to bloggin'How does your garden grow?With blisters and sweatIn a rivuletAnd hours of roto-tillingAll in a row -------------------------- Reading, Riting, and 'Rithmetic ... Read More
ROOT Entertaining Tip: Sweet Organic Mixers!
This has been an AWESOME shopping week for me. (Whodathunk, all the way up here!) On Tuesday, I visited Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a historical seaside town with a KILLER health ... Read More
A Week of Farm Firsts: Zucchini, Compost Heaps, and Pigs
This is a week of firsts. I think my farming cherry (tomato) has been officially popped. The squash I planted outside my kitchen door, after a long hard, fruitless and rainy ... Read More
What to do with our harvest of raspberries?! Freeze em? Dry em? Put em in a pie? I thought I'd try my hand at making jam without fancy canners or machines. ... Read More
MONDAY: Fall Veggie Garden Workshop!
This Monday from 6:30 to 8pm, horticulturalist Sally McCabe will be talking city gardens--more specifically, fall-vegetable city gardens. So come out to Philadelphia Community College and learn about plant selection, ... Read More
ROOT Cocktail of the Week: Ginger ROOT Sling
The ROOT Competition at Silk City brought together 14 talented baretenders, with a few of them shining over the rest. The top 4 recipes the took the judges for a ... Read More
ROOT Entertaining Tip: Empty Bottle Bouquets
SUNG SEA SHANTY DU JOUR: What do you do with a drunken sailor / What do you do with a drunken sailor / What do you do with a drunken sailor ... Read More
A Treatise On Fruits & Creatures of Solitude
There is a lot to be said (not out loud) for learning to live alone. Becoming sincerely comfortable with a generally solitary day-to-day is truly a skill that one must ... Read More
AGRO-FABulous: Agriculture Enters The Discourse of Site-Specific Installation
WATCH OUT CHRISTO & JEANNE-CLAUDE! I'm coming down the tracks with a 4 foot long roll of white, gauzy fabric! I'm ready to wrap the immediate landscape like you've never ... Read More
ROOT Entertaining Tip: Show Off Your Green Thumb with Savory Herb Garnishes!
'Tis the season for fresh EVERYTHING, especially fresh herbs. Many savory varieties can be grown in pots or in a windowbox (living in a city is NOT an excuse!). Seasonal summer ... Read More
DEATH’S SCYTHE: A Tribute to Farm Tools, Old and New
Another change that I am slowly easing into, is that over the course of the day, excluding any meetings with maintenance/repair people, I don't say very much out loud. My ... Read More
One of the coolest things about the summer (not literally) is the hay season. For years, a local farmer has planted, fertilized, and harvested 3 hay fields on the property ... Read More
The New Hampshire Scoreboard - Insects: 1, Robin: 0
It is said, in jest, that New Hampshire's REAL State Bird is the Black Fly. I say, NOT in jest, that New Hampshire's REAL State Bird is The Black Fly, The ... Read More
Farm Happenings: Electricity, Eggs, & Chard!
The rain in New Hampshire falls mainly on the... Everywhere. All the time. Non-stop... Since I arrived. But no use crying over spilled precipitation. Onward & upward! I've been delighted by the following items ... Read More
Tamworth, Ho! The Commencement of Farm Transmissions
I drove for eight hours with an enormous suitcase in a Chevy Suburban the size of my first dorm room and arrived, unscathed, in Tamworth. I drove through what is called ... Read More
FARMADELPHIA: An Interview with Yen Ha & Michi Yanagashita of Front Studio
Philadelphia has much to offer visitors and residents alike - from the swank Avenue of the Arts, to the cobblestone streets of Old City, to the ethnic flavors of the ... Read More
I am psyched to start composting for my future vegetable garden! I can have the satisfaction of reducing my contribution to the overflowing landfills of the world by turning trash ... Read More
A Relevant Summer Reading List thus far: Look To The Mountain by LeGrand Cannon, Jr. Summer Cottages In The White Mountains by Bryant F. Tolles, Jr. Great Hill Farm is featured in here... Country ... Read More
A New, New Hampshire Life: Looking Forward
As a foil to my previous list of things to miss about urban living in Philadelphia, I present a modest pictorial list of what I am anticipating this summer and ... Read More
