Category Recent

Permaculture For Renters

If you live in the city, that doesn’t mean you can’t grow your own fruits and veggies! By using a few simple strategies, you can enjoy fresh homegrown fruits and veggies, year round.

Heather Jo Flores

Heather Jo Flores is the founder and director of Permaculture Women's Guild, Food Not Lawns, and the freepermaculture project, and creates about half of the content in our course.

How to write good

Timeless tools for writers of every genre I work with a lot of writers who are just beginning to publish their work, and though their steady flow of amazing ideas blows my mind on the daily, I notice a handful of…

Murder your darlings, but DON’T kill your heroine!

Why you should cut your ego out of your writing…but still let your strong female protagonist live to tell the tale. “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your…

Tropes, Women, and the Heroine’s Journey

Is There Such a Thing as a Feminist Trope? What do you think about these ideas? Check out these references: Start here with this awesome video by a man (gasp!) discussing feminist film tropes to celebrate. A lot of these characters…

12 Plants to Grow When Gardening with Children

By Heather Jo Flores By no means an exhaustive selection of great plants for gardening with children, the following twelve plants can all be direct-sown, grow quickly and easily, and are fun to harvest for food, cut flowers, or seeds.​Corn.Popcorn…

10 Benefits of having a greenhouse

they’re easier to build than you might think By Heather Jo Flores Ten reasons to build a greenhouse: Start seeds early (and late!) Many seeds need warmth to germinate and develop into healthy seedlings. If the growing season is short, getting…

What do weeds indicate about your soil?

By Heather Jo Flores What Weeds Indicate About the Condition of Your Soil “Weeds are weeds only from our human egotistical point of view, because they grow where we do not want them. In nature, however, they play an important and…

How to grow tomatoes in a temperate climate

By Heather Jo Flores Tips for cloudy skies tomato gardeners In a foggy, temperate climate, most of us know the drill: Start seeds indoors in early spring and use grow lights if you have ’em. Plant in fertile soil with…

How to grow melons: tips and tricks

By Heather Jo Flores a little ingenuity goes a long way If you’re a gardener and you feel like melons are easy to grow, please, message me! I want to learn your methods. I have found this crop to be one…

Marigolds as a Companion Plant

Why you should be growing marigolds in your permaculture garden By Heather Jo Flores What do you think of when you hear the word marigold? Maybe you imagine those 6-inch-high borders of orange and yellow flowers that your grandmother planted…

How to make gazpacho from homegrown tomatoes

By HeatherJo Flores Gazpacho is often called a “cold soup” by gringos, but around here, it’s served over ice as an afternoon drink on hot summer days. Delicious and refreshing! Here is a quick rundown of everything you will need…

Bring us a Shrubbery! Best plants for edible hedges

A baker’s dozen of easy to grow and disease-resistant perennial hedge plants. By Heather Jo Flores No garden is complete without a yummy patch of edible, perennial shrubbery! Even a small garden can squeeze in a few brambles, berries or ‘chokes.…

How to Prune Fruit Trees

By Heather Jo Flores Most basic pruning, especially on young trees that haven’t been previously damaged or badly pruned, can be done by anyone with some basic information Should I Stay or Should I Go? The main reason for fruit…