Longleaf Breeze

Growing fruit is an exercise in delayed gratification. After four years, the fruit trees are maturing and we are beginning to see real abundance of apples, pears, figs, muscadines,...

In central Alabama pears usually outperform apples, So plant only pears, right? If we had followed that advice, we would have missed out on a delicious, abundant apple harvest this...

We love squash, but it sure keeps us humble. This week we offer some perspective on squash formed over our five years of planting it, nurturing it, watching it die, and every now a...

It's the middle of the summer in Central Alabama, and that means it's the peak of pest season. Stink bugs, squash bugs, vine borers, grasshoppers, not to mention poison ivy and pla...

We're back now from a one-week stay at the lake. It was beautiful, and we had fun, but we're not rested. We returned to the farm daily to check on the vegetables, the fruit, the ch...

We look beyond the national Independence Day to explore what we're doing to make ourselves more independent. How are we doing on planting, harvesting, preserving, limiting waste, l...

Our daily power consumption is way up as we use the AC in the lodge, the dehumidifiers in our closets, and even on occasion the electric clothes dryer. The grass loves this kind of...

If you call yourself a reasonably proficient grower of your own food, you ought to be able to grow potatoes. On our fourth attempt at growing spuds, we finally enjoy modest success...

Each day we're getting smarter about chickens. This week we caught up with Dr Joseph B Hess and his colleague Dr Ken Macklin of the Auburn University Poultry Science Department and...

We stand on the shoulders of the giants who have preceded us. They help us see the truth. Today we merely scratch the surface of the ways our elders have supported us, strengthened...

We should have planted the pecans back in January or February. All we can do at this point is to get them in the ground now. They will be vulnerable to drought, so we need to keep ...

Questions and Amanda's answers from our talk at the Wetumpka Public Library. You’ll hear a couple of questions about composting; then we talk about upside down tomatoes, and then g...