The Foraging Report: Apple butter, the economics of canning
Blog entry by Jess Watson.
Last updated at Thu, 10 Feb at 8:32am.

Friends are pressing apples for cider this weekend, and I was served a slice of birthday apple pie last night, so apples must be in season. No one in my Homesteading Circle has an apple tree, but several of us have very particular taste memories of apple butter, and we wanted to try making some. We decided to turn to the Bay Area Homestead Hookup to help us make it happen.

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The Foraging Report: End-of-summer peaches
Blog entry by Jess Watson.
Last updated at Wed, 9 Feb at 11:49am.

I've recently joined a Homesteading Circle, and I'm still on a high about it.

For our first meeting, we picked a plum tree clean, ending up with huge bowls and buckets full of plums that we converted into plum chutney.

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Foraging Report: Harvesting Oakland olives
Article by Jess Watson.
Last updated at Thu, 27 Jan at 10:15am.

You're probably thinking, “I didn't know we had olive groves in Oakland.” 

And we don't ... per se. But the trees are everywhere. Once you can recognize their distinctive gray-green silhouette, it's just a slight shift in awareness to start to see them everywhere you go. 

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11 for 11: Christopher Shein makes permaculture gardening fun for all
Article by Jess Watson.
Last updated at Fri, 14 Jan at 12:33pm.

(Editor's note: Our continuing series that looks at Oakland Local's picks for people/organizations to watch in 2011. See all profiles in this series.)

Christoper Shein is the Bay Area's resident permaculture design guru and for the last 10 years, he has taught the Permaculture Design class at Merritt Community College’s Landscape Horticulture Department, inspiring hundreds of students to build new gardens and integrate permaculture's principles of sustainability into surrounding landscapes.

Shein just signed a contract with Timber Press to write a permaculture gardening book in 2011, with the working title of "The Edible Gardener's Guide to Permaculture."

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