After recent years of record-high temperatures and raging wildfires, Oregon farmworkers will now be entitled to overtime pay under a bill passed by the state legislature last week.  The legislation states that farmworkers will eventually be entitled to ov... read more

Does this Friday afternoon sound familiar? It’s been a long week in a year (two years?) of long weeks. You’re a little achy, you have a bit of a headache and there aren’t any big plans for the weekend because, ya know.  We’ve all been there. But instead o... read more

We’ve reached that point in late summer when my pepper plants are producing more than I can keep up with. There are only so many stuffed peppers, fajitas and stir fries one can eat. If your garden is also pumping out a bountiful amount of peppers right no... read more

Some agricultural terms—such as “organic”— seem pretty straightforward. There is a certification process, in which farmers need to show each step of the production cycle, and there can be regular audits to ensure a level of quality control. But other term... read more

Ian McConachie has spent much of the past 50 years tramping through the rainforest on the hunt for wild macadamia trees. “Finding a wild macadamia is akin to the thrill of finding gold,” he says. Yet it’s not the sweet buttery nuts that command up to $25 ... read more

Just a few years ago, hemp was sold as the next big cash crop, with the 2018 Farm Bill pushing production along. The bill formally distinguished between hemp and cannabis and opened up the market for producers to flood in. Thousands of people began farmin... read more

New, old and aspiring indoor gardeners have another reason to expand or start up a microgreen operation from home. A recent study has validated the benefits of these plants, finding that greens grown on a windowsill stack up to those produced in a commerc... read more

Every slice of bread has a link to Ukraine—and not just because the country is a major wheat exporter. What we eat has biological ties to both Russia and Ukraine, because our breadbaskets are woven from the same wheat. I’ve been steeped in this kinship as... read more

12 days of homemade Christmas presentsDay 12???? Christmas Pudding Talk about saving the best for last! This recipe comes to us from deep in the Local is Lovely blog archives and before that, from Anna Derham aka @derhaminteriors’ late Grandma Booth. Than... read more

“Forget it. Just throw them in the garbage,” I said to my husband Chris who was standing in front of me with a huge plastic bin meant for Christmas ornaments; only there was no holiday cheer inside this bin. Instead, it was filled with almost a hundred bi... read more

As California entered a second year of drought last spring, the slash in water allocation didn’t catch Rachel Krach and Greg Massa, owners of Massa Organics, by surprise. The real shocker came when they went to plant their Sacramento Valley rice fields: a... read more

Do you know what’s in your food? That’s the question posed to me by Kevin Lo, CEO of FoodID, a company that tests food to ensure accountability on food labels. It’s a direct question and one that I feel confident answering. What’s in my food? Food, I repl... read more

April Rolle had a leafy green problem. The busy doctor loved salads, but she hadn’t had any luck growing lettuce or other salad components in her outdoor container garden, and because of her schedule, she never ended up using all of the greens she bought ... read more

We easily accept that summer is the time for sweet corn and tomatoes, and fall is the season for hearty squashes and orchard fruits—at least where I live in the northern hemisphere. But rarely do we give the same thought to cheese. Why not? Cheese is an a... read more