Hip Chick Digs

City chick gets her hands dirty on her urban homestead planting an edible garden, raising backyard chickens, preserving the harvest and working toward a greener future

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Road Trip: Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center

July 8th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Upon my arrival into Austin, Texas, I quickly made a beeline for the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. It is a place I have seen pictures of in my Landscape Architecture classes as a beautifully designed, sustainable landscape. If you are within 100 miles of Austin, it is worth the detour to see this spectacular place.

I [...]

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Tags: design · garden art · gardening · rainwater harvesting · traveling · trees · vines · wildlife

Eugene Grafting Fair

March 25th, 2010 · 1 Comment

The Eugene Permaculture Guild hosts an annual, free Spring Propagation Fair that I recently attended. The event included a fruit tree grafting portion, a seed swap area and several speakers throughout the day talking about things related to edible gardening. I have always been curious about how fruit tree grafting works so I went to [...]

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Tags: events · trees · workshop

Back Home

October 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments

I spent a recent morning working in my garden back at our house in Portland, which we are renting out while I am in Eugene going through grad school. Summer is long gone and I wanted to check in on the permanent plantings. It was a mixed experience.

It felt good to be back home, even [...]

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Tags: food forest · gardening · trees

September Orchard Tour

September 14th, 2008 · No Comments

Last year I went on the Orchard Tour at One Green World in October. This year I won’t be around for the October 11th tour, so I went on the September tour yesterday instead. I ended up going solo - just my travel mug and some motown music. It was a lovely drive to Molalla, [...]

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Tags: events · food forest · trees

Tree Generations

May 7th, 2008 · 4 Comments

A local arborist said the lilac tree in our backyard was one of the oldest he had ever seen. It’s fun for me to think of that tree as a little sapling in the backyard, back in the day when our neighbor’s new house was an empty lot still attached to our property. The old [...]

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Tags: food forest · trees