diy—Cully, Northeast (NE) Portland...

In a shift away from the country’s once hyper-consumptive ways, many Portlanders have been discovering how to participate in a local, and more resourceful, sharing economy. Based on models of collaborative consumption, in which owning becomes less necessary, our innovative and community-minded citizenry has expanded an economy centered around bartering, borrowing and sharing. Portland has, in many ways, led the charge in what we more...

Your at-home cocktails gardens are resting prettily in the windowsill. There are no major holidays for which to prepare grog. And, your infusions are happily marinating on the shelves. So, what’s the next step in your home mixology program? Let’s try homemade bitters. With your new bitters brewed, you’ll be able to round out some of your homemade cocktails, make some much-loved, classic cocktails, and jazz up your more...

Event date: Apr 1, 2012

Event location: Whitaker Ponds Nature Park, 7040 NE 47th Ave.

Contain that rain! Rain gardens add beauty to your yard and can help restore overloaded urban streams at the same time. Join us and learn how to construct a rain garden in your own yard! You’ll learn how to: assess your site to decide best location and size calculate impervious surfaces determine soil suitability choose appropriate plants for and how to maintain your new rain garden Participants will receive a comprehensive more...

Let’s imagine that it’s already Halloween, you have your patio lights up and a few carved gourds on the porch, and the important question lingering in the fall air is: what on earth are you going to be serving to your thirsty, be-costumed guests? Grog, fellow drinkers. Go with grog. Because there is no better complement to a night dripping with zombie anythings and sexy everythings than a drink whose last true heyday was more...

We know you haven’t had enough of old-school drinks and cocktails yet, so here’s the next in line we’d suggest for your go-to winter list: sherry. That’s right. Sherry. There’s a dry, complex quality to this Spanish wine that makes a lovely pair with the crisp (erm, soggy) autumn breeze starting to blow around Portland. It’s a great drink to offer guests arriving at your dinner party or to sip on more...

Event date: Oct 15, 2011

Event location: Whitaker Ponds Natural Area, 7040 NE 47th Avenue

Learn to Naturescape! Want to create a low maintenance, chemical-free garden? Learn to design your landscape to conserve water, prevent pollution and save you time, money and energy at the same time! You will view before and after examples of naturescaping, get advice on native plant gardening & landscape design, and visit a nearby naturescaped garden. You’ll also receive a comprehensive workbook and a free native plant to more...

When Kristl Bridge opened Portland Homestead Supply Co. in Sellwood in June, a visitor asked her why anyone would take tasks such as canning, pickling, and soap-making into their own hands when it’s often easier to pay someone else to do the work. “It was our first day open, so my first response to it ... was to sort of panic,” Bridge recalls. “I thought, ‘Wow maybe nobody will [do this], and we’ll more...

Four weeks of summer in and it’s nearly autumn again, at least according to the calendar. In other words, this is the perfect time to start infusing everything from olive oil to brandy! Because in four weeks when you are cold again, and have spent all of your money on patio beers in the sunshine, life will be better when you look around and see all kinds of home infusions that have turned your little counter bar and your kitchen more...

When the New York Times published a story in November 2008 about a renewed national interest in root cellars, the featured root cellarist was someone from Portland. It stands to reason. Here in grow-your-own, do-it-yourself central, we Portlanders would naturally be on top of a revived, time-honored trend that relates to homegrown food. Okay, so almost three years later, it’s exposé time. Harriet Fasenfest, the Northeast more...

It used to be that a collection of seeds was a vital possession, and that protecting seeds from one’s own garden meant protecting a family’s food source and livelihood. “Seeds were smuggled from Russia, from places in Europe,” says Corina Reynolds, a Portland-based permaculturist who grew up with victory-gardening grandparents. “People would sew them into their skirts or their suitcase linings when they more...