Kate Crowley

The completed herb pot in action. You can make this in your backyard in under an hour. (Minus the chip on the left.)

One trip to the Desert Botanical Garden bookstore and you'll be full of ideas for your own garden. Some are practical and others require winning the lottery or moving. Luckily, they carry Concrete Garden Projects by Malin Nilsson and Camilla Arvidsson, a book that not only serves as inspiration via beautiful photos but also provides easy-to-follow DIY instructions on how to make everything from small pots for plants to a concrete barbecue.

You're thinking, concrete? First thing, concrete is pretty sturdy, and if you've ever had your favorite pot weathered by the Arizona sun, you'll soon realize that concrete is a great choice. Concrete also is very easy to work with, and nearly anything can be made into a mold for concrete. Once finished, your plant and its greenery will create contrast with the gray concrete and just looks cool.

See also:
- Boho Farm and Home's Caroline Van Slyke Offers Tips on Gardening in Phoenix
- How To Make the Best Mint Julep, Ever

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New Times archives

Tempe residents who love veggies, get ready to celebrate. Blue Sky Farms is planning on starting a new CSA program and they're doing so by teaming up with Green, meaning you'll soon have one more place to get fresh, organic vegetables without having to schlep it out to the farm.

See also:
- Five Favorite CSAs in Metro Phoenix
- 9 Things That Make Phoenix a Better Food (and Drink) Town than New York City

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http://www.etsy.com/shop/sarahayashi

With the transition of seasons, your veggie garden is transitioning, too. If you're tired of canning -- and friends and relatives cannot keep up with your bounty -- pickling some of your crop adds flavor and preserves the vegetables at the same time. Nearly every culture has its version and methods for pickling. Pickled items are considered high in acidity and there's increasing studies noting their beneficial nutritional qualities.

Dean Lambros owns Pickled Perfection, and if you frequent Phoenix-area farmers markets, you've probably sampled some of his company's unique foods. Chow Bella caught up with Lambros to learn more about pickling and what to consider when trying the process at home.

See also:
- Pickled Perfection in Just Three Days: Locally Made
- DIY Bread and Butter Jalapeno Pickles

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Screen Cap: Flash Garden

Part flash mob, part guerrilla gardening, part hula-hoop jam -- that's what swept through Pomegranate Café on Saturday, April 6. In the middle of a busy weekend lunch service, a group of volunteers organized by gardenfly, a SEED SPOT venture that brings together gardeners, spontaneously installed a portable garden in front of the Ahwatukee restaurant in three minutes flat.

See also:
- Feast on the Street: A Celebration of Local Food to Roosevelt Row in Phoenix on April 13
- Pomegranate Cafe: Destination Dining for the Health Conscious

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From AZQueenBee.com and Emily Brown

Meet Emily Brown, Arizona's Queen Bee!

Come over here, honey, and let's get to know each other.

Whether you like the sticky stuff in your tea, yogurt, or on a peanut butter sandwich, you should appreciate where it comes from. For some insight, we turned to Emily Brown, a.k.a. "AZ Queen Bee."

She makes honey and honey products, and she also provides bee-removal services. Brown has kept bees for more than 20 years in various parts of the county -- and she really knows her stuff.

Brown's a member of the American Beekeeping Federation and the resident bee keeper at the Boulders Resort, and she often makes presentations about beekeeping to school groups.

So, is there going to be a sudden surge in beekeeping, akin to the backyard chicken craze? That's a definite maybe.

See also:
- Downtown Phoenix's GROWop Boutique and Phoenix Style Collective Host Honey Harvest
- Bees Eat M&Ms, Make Multi-Colored Honey

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www.fivestarpublications.com

Local resident, author, and painter Barbara Bayless Lacy's book Nanise' is a unique find.

If you've blown through the gardening books on your reading list this winter or are looking for some inspiration this summer, local author and painter Barbara Bayless Lacy's book, Nanise': A Navajo Herbal: One Hundred Plants From the Navajo Reservation is a unique find.

Nanise' means "vegetation" in Navajo, and although the book was first published in 1989, it's been updated and was reissued in October. The book provides the Navajo name for each plant, and how Navajo people use each plant in traditional ways.
See also:
- Now Open: White Eyes Fresh Fry Bread Food Truck
- Fry Bread: Bringing Arizona's Native Cuisine Into The Future

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Photos, left by Kate Crowley, right by Caroline Van Slyke

Farm to table

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Phoenix, the kind of morning when posh couples with Suri-like children sip espresso at La Grande Orange and the fit triathletes of Phoenix have been up for hours enjoying the weather and getting in their weekly miles.

I was at Boho Farm and Home in Arcadia with Caroline Van Slyke, her husband David, his brother in law and a Scottish terrier . . . "processing" chickens. As a pet-chicken owner with several generations of farming in my background, I wanted to see if I could be a part of the process, er, processing, and learn something new. Ever since Van Slyke's son told me about sending the chickens to "freezer camp," I was curious about how slaughtering chickens in a backyard really works.

See also:
- Boho Farm and Home's Caroline Van Slyke Offers Tips on Gardening in Phoenix
- Grown-Up Applesauce with Caroline Van Slyke

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Courtesy of Chef Eldridge

This chef makes harvesting carrots in the desert look easy!

Gertrude's is the new restaurant (opened in January) at the Desert Botanical Garden and in addition to offering an expansive array of carefully chosen local ingredients, killer ambiance and a distinctive wine and spirits list, the restaurant also keeps it's own garden to complete the farm-to-table experience. It's safe to say a trip to the Desert Botanical Garden will get your inner gardening mind churning with both indigenous plant varieties and now vegetable garden envy as well.

The restaurant's namesake, Mrs. Gertrude Divine Webster, founded the Desert Botanical Garden in 1939. Since she is no longer with us to share gardening tips, Chow Bella spoke with Chef Stephen Eldridge on what it's been like growing a garden (gardens in his case) at a restaurant and tips for your garden this spring.

See also:
- Desert Botanical Garden to Open AZ-inspired Gertrude's Restaurant in January
- Boho Farm and Home's Caroline Van Slyke Offers Tips on Gardening in Phoenix

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Wikipedia Commons, Credit: elPadawan

It was cold. Is your garden a little brown?

We had an extended cold snap here in Phoenix and after that we got pummeled with rain. Chances are, your yard looks like a 5-day-old salad bar. Gary Brown from Sun Belt Landscaping has been a landscape designer in Arizona for 35 years and agreed to let us in on some helpful hints on how to deal with your mess of a garden.

See also:
- Phoenix Cold Snap Is Over, But What Are the Repercussions for Local Farmers and the Restaurants Who Buy From Them?
- Boho Farm and Home's Caroline Van Slyke Offers Tips on Gardening in Phoenix

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Courtsey of Eric Flatt.

Restaurant owner and avid hunter Eric Flatt with a mule deer he shot here in Arizona.

Eric Flatt, co owner of Tonto Bar & Grill and Cartwright's restaurants in Cave Creek, not only sources from ranchers, he's also an avid and accomplished hunter himself. Flatt grew up on a small ranch in Colorado and started fishing and hunting as a child. "It's knowing where your meal came from and what it took to make it," says Flatt about the joys of hunting for your own meat.

Being a hunter has influenced Flatt's choice of items on each of his menus including
Cartwright's famous "Trio of Tenderloins," which is 3 oz. of 3 types of meat: Elk, Beef & Buffalo. "I love it when guests have this for the first time," says Flatt. "They always pick elk or buffalo first and always beef last." We chatted with Flatt who shared insight on his menu, hunting in Arizona, and how he uses his meat. (Vegetarians, you've been warned!)

See also:
- Desert to Table Cooking at Tonto Bar & Grill Features Seasonal Prickly Pears
- A Dove Flew Into His Window and Died; This Man Grilled and Ate It

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