Still facing the bird with no clue how to cook it? Got a finished turkey and unsure how to carve it? Missing an ingredient and need a last minute substitution? Check out all our Holiday Guides and Tips for even more help!

Many of our stores are open for shortened hours on Thanksgiving Day. So if there’s something you still need today, give your local store a call to find out what hours they are there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whole Story

Now, let’s get the Earth Month party started! In the spirit of making a difference, and in a moment of tooting our own horn, here’s a look at some of the fun things we’ve got planned.

As of Earth Day (April 22^nd), we will no longer sell red-rated swordfish in our seafood department. Want to know more? Learn about how to make informed choices from sea to plate.

We’ve developed new Quality Standards for Organic Body Care because we believe very strongly that the meaning of the word “organic” shouldn’t change as you walk around our stores. Watch for more info about these new standards next week.

On Earth Day we’ll debut (drum roll, please) our new Quality Standards for Household Cleaning Products to help make sure your cleaning products aren’t dirty! You’ll see more about this later in the month.

During the month of April, we’re presenting the Do Something Reel™ Film Festival, a collection of six provocative, character-driven films focused on passionate people making a world of difference. This nationwide traveling festival will be presented in 70+ cities in celebration of Earth Month. More about this coming soon, and you can find a screening near you and check out this trailer about the Festival.

For more about our green efforts, check out our Green Mission page. April is a great time to reflect on how the “little green things” we all do in our daily lives really add up. We really are making a difference together. And, you know, keep holding our feet to the fire. We really do appreciate those of you who encourage us to always do more.

Got plans to celebrate Earth Month? Let’s hear ‘em!

Whole Story

Still facing the bird with no clue how to cook it? Got a finished turkey and unsure how to carve it? Missing an ingredient and need a last minute substitution? Check out ourHoliday Guides & Tips for some help!

Whole Story

From Transfair:

From Dogfish Head Brewery:

From Country Natural Beef:

From Wellshire Farms:

Whole Story

From GENE LOGSDON

How many slick tricks have you learned about farming and gardening more or less by accident? My favorite example happened because of laziness. I didn’t clean out the roof gutter on the barn for over a year. I have a longstanding prejudice against roof gutters anyway. Why not just let the water run off the roof onto a layer of gravel or stone along the wall? The gutters plug regularly and the water overflows anyway. This is especially true of my barn which sits in the woods. All sorts of tree leaves, twigs, and seeds end up in the gutter. Five tree leaves can plug a downspout no matter what kind of contraption you install to prevent it. And those screens that are supposed to keep debris out of the gutters become clogged and the water cascades right on over and down to the ground. That is, in any event, how I justify my laziness. Water running off the barn roof (as opposed to running off the house roof) is certainly not of any consequence as far as looks are concerned. In fact that water off the roof keeps the whole barnyard lawn nice and green all summer.

Now the plot thickens. Last year I decided to turn one of my pasture plots into woodland as you know if you have been reading this website. I figured I would just scatter all kinds of tree seeds over the plot and by and by some of them would sprout and grow. That does work, but I could see right away that nature’s way was going to be too slow for this old man. So I started transplanting seedlings. That too has proven not to be as easy or automatic as it sounds. Digging up seedlings is hard work and some of them die no matter how careful I try not to disturb the roots.

I was thinking about this situation one day in June when I happened to be walking past the barn. I looked up at the gutter and was startled to see that it looked like one very elongated pot of plants. All sorts of things were growing ludicrously out of it. But of course: maple, oak, ash, elm and wild cherry seeds had been washing into it for over a year. Some of them had sprouted and were growing with the abundance of rain that had fallen. I could lift them out with all their roots intact without straining one muscle, carry several dozen in a bucket at once, and plant them with only minimal effort.

Sometimes laziness pays. Happy happenstance farming!

Another example of learning by accident is something my sheep taught me earlier but never more graphically than this summer. On the strips where I grew corn last year, I disked and broadcast red clover this spring. It came up fine but then in our very wet May and June it faltered in the water-logged soil. I grazed it anyway, thinking it would come back with drier weather. But by mid-June, and after I shifted the sheep on to other plots, the clover was completely blotted out by crabgrass and quack grass. I moaned and groaned. By mid July, time for that plot to be grazed again, the strips that had been clover were bright green with these two grasses. But the sheep went after them like a child after chocolate.

So now I can tell you how to have good lush pasture in the hot dry days of summer. Pretend that you are going to grow corn. That’s really all you have to do. Plow and/or disk some land, then go away. It might even help to plant some corn if you have some cheap seed since I am convinced that quack grass and crabgrass will grow even faster and denser if they think they are competing with corn. Or broadcast clover like I did which also seems to bring out the villainy of these two weed grasses. Then pray for bad weather. Crabgrass and quack grass love it wet and love it dry. They are genetically engineered by nature to cover bare land to protect it against erosion and by hickory they will cover it come hell or high water. Where all those grass seeds came from to make such a magnificent stand, I do not know. Life is full of mysteries.

This method of growing lush pasture in summer is not necessarily a good thing. It requires cultivating the soil, which is what I am trying to get away from in pasture farming. But if you are going to cultivate some of your land every year anyway, a rotation of corn, quack grass and crabgrass is something to consider. Another happy happenstance might follow. It did for me. After the sheep grazed the grasses down to the ground, (they did a fairly good job on some ragweed that dared to dispute the territory with the grasses) I mowed the strips and guess what. Here comes the red clover back again!
~~

Organic Recipes, Organic Food, Local Food, Small Farms, Family Farms, Edible Landscapes, Shop Local – OrganicToBe.org

The folks at Happy N’ Healthy know that a lot of pet owners are concerned about high standards for what their dogs and cats eat too. All of the raw material for the Happy N’ Healthy pet line comes from ranchers whose beef is sold in our meat case (for humans) and that provides an outlet for these ranchers to sell parts of their cattle that people generally do not eat. I appreciate how this provides high quality meat for our pets while making sure that nothing goes to waste. Win-win in my book!
Happy N’ Healthy was one of the first to offer 100% natural beef dog bones produced from cattle that were never given antibiotics or added hormones. Other dog bones may come from conventionally raised cattle or from old dairy cattle whose bones, by their very nature, can be brittle and can splinter. But Happy N’ Healthy dog beef bones are minimally processed with enough moisture left in the bone to prevent splintering. There are no additives or flavorings or anything else added – just a wholesome treat for your dog.

They also offer 100% Organic Beef Treats in two flavors – Beef Liver and Beef Lung.  These healthy treats for dogs are certified 100% organic and can be broken into bite-size pieces, according to your dog’s size and weight.  These U.S.-made treats were developed by a former head of animal nutrition at The Ohio State University and are made using only USDA-inspected ingredients with no preservatives, fillers, grains or artificial flavor.

Their most recent product is sold exclusively in our stores: Raw Frozen Dog and Cat Foods. These are available in a 100% organic formulation for dogs as well as all-natural formulations for dogs and cats. Every ingredient is 100% organic or antibiotic free with no added hormones, and they contain no fillers, artificial ingredients or preservatives.

The folks at Happy N’ Healthy plan to continue to grow their line of natural and organic pet treats and food. I plan to support them and hope you will as well.

Whole Story

My son, Aidan, has built a mystique around sunflowers. Mostly it has to do with how they follow the sun — an open sunflower in the ground will start the day with the flower facing east and finish the day facing west. Aidan believes they do this to see him off to school in the morning and welcome him back in the afternoon. He also believes that, because they are so tall, they are perfect for standing guard over all the other plants in the garden. We always plant a row of sunflower seeds in the back of our mystery pumpkin bed every season to, according to Aidan, keep our pumpkins safe until they are ready to harvest for Halloween.

I also believe there is something more to sunflowers than meets the eye. Like apricots and cherries, the arrival of sunflowers en mass at our stores signals the end of the spring (and a tearful goodbye to tulips and most other bulb flowers). Sunflowers personify summer and the outdoors. They are a wonderful plant to grow, having many fascinating stages and a dizzying array of colors, bloom characteristics and practical uses.  Among these is a second life as a natural bird feeder — as the bloom fades and the seeds mature, sunflowers naturally attract birds and squirrels.

Aside from their aesthetic attributes, sunflowers are a very important commercial plant. A native to North America, sunflowers owe their commercial success to Russian farmers. Grown for two primary crop types, small sunflower seeds are pressed for oil (for cooking and cosmetic uses) and larger varieties are cultivated for seed for a broad range of uses. Commercial sunflower fields are fascinating to see — possessing the same “follow the sun” characteristics as garden sunflowers do but on a much larger scale.

Sunflowers for the fresh cut market are also an extremely important regional and local crop. As the domestic season progresses and local growers come on line, sunflower supply chains get shorter and shorter. West coast commercial production is mainly in Southern California. The east coast gets much of its commercial supply from North Carolina and Michigan but when the weather gets warms enough, sunflowers can come from virtually anywhere. Varieties are diverse, depending on growing areas and desired characteristics, but one thing all sunflowers have in common is that they are big and heavy, which makes short trips to market all the more desirable for growers.

Our global sunflower expert Amanda gave me some basic care tips:

• Sunflowers prefer clean water (their fuzzy stems are easily clogged up in a vase).
• Re-trimming the stem each time you change the water will help them last longer.
• Average vase life for well-cared-for suns is about two weeks.
• Keep away from direct sunlight and excessive heat, as this will force the flowers to “drink” more heavily and lean towards the light source (which is a recipe for a broken vase).
• If the blooms are not fully “face” open, just give them a trim and let them drink up warm water (bath temp) for about one hour…they’ll wake up for sure!
• Keep water cool and clean and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.

I have to admit, I have fed Aidan’s perception that sunflowers are somehow more “alive” than other plants — mainly because I believe it to be true. I love how seeds from the same plant can produce new sunflowers that are sometimes radically different from the parent plant. I could swear I hear them growing at times and even at their last stages of life, sunflowers have a complex beauty that is lasting. Maybe I’m a little goofy, but it does feel at times in quiet hours of the morning (east) or in the final moments of the day (west), that these tall, swaying giants are somehow watching over me and all the other plants in the garden. That’s fine by me, I can’t think of a happier guardian.

Many thanks to Amanda Rainey for contributing to this post.

Whole Story