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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES

If you’ve always wanted to raise chickens in your backyard but didn’t know where to start (or how to convince your significant other that it’s a good idea), self-proclaimed “crazy chicken lady” Laura McLean is here to help. From chicken coop recommendations to cleaning tips, she offers advice and encouragement: Just a year and a half into her urban farming experiment, she says, “We have a beautiful coop, daily fresh eggs (most of the year), and a ton of laughs and love for these crazy birds!”

Dirty Labs makes incredibly effective, enzyme-based, non-toxic cleaning products that tackle stains and grime without harsh chemicals or plastic packaging. The laundry detergent, which is available fragrance-free and in two sophisticated scents, is so concentrated that you only need about a quarter-ounce per load. The powdered dish detergent is equally impressive, and, in our experience, outperforms even the best-selling pods. Find this and more sustainable products in the Bluedot Living Collection.

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” — President Dwight D. Eisenhower 

This week, we’re celebrating farms, farmers, and farm-fresh produce. Farming is a task, as President Eisenhower points out, that looks easy until you try it yourself — reliant as it is on just the right mix of sun and rain, healthy soil, advanced technology, and strong backs. Learn about the many ways farming feeds us in this newsletter. 

• The Joys of Raising Backyard Chickens

• What Happens When a Neighborhood Is Built Around a Farm

• Energy Bar: Farming the Sun

• The Story Behind CSAs

• How to Create a Rain Garden

• Imagine If Podcast: The Granor Farm Model With Liz Cicchelli

• Daily Dot: Farming for Freedom

• Woman-Owned Brands We Love

• 3 Easy Ways to Level Up Your Eggs

• Climate Quick Tip: More Bulgur, Less Burger

FEATURED STORIES

BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

One-fifth of global gas emissions are based on meat-based food production. A plant-based diet will make a difference. Check out Bluedot’s recipe section for ideas.

Bluedot Kitchen

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Last year, Bluedot contributor Zanny Merullo traveled to Panama with Azuero Adventures, an ecotourism group that works with the community to offer an alternative source of income to traditional extractive practices like ranching, logging, and commercial fishing, while also offering visitors access to the country’s natural beauty. The story she wrote for Bluedot Living about her experience has been chosen as a finalist for the Inspire Global Media Awards in the category of Consumer Feature of the Year for International Writers! Read the story.

Daily Dot: Farming for Freedom

Illustration by Elissa Turnbull

A recent Daily Dot celebrated an innovative farm program in France that aims to give about-to-be-released prisoners a waypoint on their way to freedom, readying them to start making their own choices and decisions again and helping them gain skills to transition into a productive post-prison life. One of those waypoints is Moyembrie farm. “Over half of the inmates who go there are working or in training three months after release and all leave with stable accommodation,” reads a story on Reasons to Be Cheerful.

Benefits of this approach are many: Families are more likely to visit inmates there, which helps keep connections strong, and prisoners who’ve been given responsibility and skills training, as well as assistance finding housing and jobs, are much less likely to reoffend. And we know the healing power of working with nature.

Read more about this farm and a solar farm educating kids in Illinois.

On Imagine If, the Bluedot Living podcast, you’ll hear stories of forests restored through smarter fire management, cities uniting to cut emissions, invasive species transformed into sustainable cuisine, and farms rebuilding soil and community. Each episode explores real progress — from everyday choices to global policy shifts — reminding us that meaningful climate action is not only possible, it’s already in motion.

Click now to listen on your favorite listening platform!

BUY LESS/BUY BETTER:
Woman-Owned Brands We Love

If you make a purchase through our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission.

This International Women’s Month, we’d like to highlight some amazing woman-owned brands. Like our own founder, Victoria Riskin, the women behind these companies have passion, vision, and the desire to enable others to live more sustainably. Now through March 31, enter code WOMEN10 at checkout to save 10% on all woman-owned brands. 

As always, your purchases support environmental nonprofits through Bluedot’s 1% for the Planet commitment, and we plant a tree with every order.

“No-Makeup” Makeup

Zero-waste, plastic-free makeup brand Axiology creates versatile lip-to-lid makeup crayons for that “I woke up like this” look. Founder Ericka Rodriguez started making 10-ingredient vegan lipsticks in her kitchen after learning how many of her own beauty products had been tested on animals. The company supports a co-op of Balinese women who turn trash they collect on the island’s beaches into Axiology’s 100% recyclable packaging. (from $16) Shop now.

The Best Laundry Hack 

Rachael Miller and her partner James Lyne were working in ocean cleanup and advocacy when they learned about the devastating effects of microplastics on marine environments. The pair hired Brooke Winslow, a young engineer, to help them design the Cora Ball, a laundry ball that captures nearly a third of the microplastics that clothes release in the wash. ($46) Shop now.

American-Made Linens

Janet Wischnia, the founder of American Blossom Linens, grew up working alongside her father and brothers in the textile business. Her company’s soft yet crisp percale bedding not only feels amazing, it’s also grown, milled, spun, and sewn in the United States. (from $79) Shop now.

What You Can Do: Join a CSA

Bluedot Brooklyn delivered this story about the history of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and how you can subscribe to one in that borough. Outside Brooklyn? No worries. CSAs are everywhere, offering you the chance to support local farms and receive weekly or biweekly boxes of fresh, healthy produce. Find one close to you by clicking here if you live in the U.S. or here if you live in Canada.

The Keep-This Handbook

Ready to rid your garden of deep puddles? Create a rain garden, a great way to “fight flooding beautifully,” as Bluedot contributor Kym Wolfe puts it. With easy-to-follow instructions and great photos, Bluedot shares how one homeowner installed a rain garden, and how you can, too. 

The Family Farm

My grandfather always had something of a city farm, though over the years he sold off all but a large plot behind his house. He held a job, fought in World War I, and trained soldiers in World War II, but also raised turkeys and grew most of what his family ate. He dealt with the issues most farmers face — droughts, coyotes, pests. But working the soil was as much a spiritual practice to him as a practical one. He never seemed happier than when he was deep in dirt.

As a kid, I loved helping my grandfather harvest from this plot, which had become more of an oversized backyard garden. Afterwards, we’d sit on his porch, divvying up the spoils, emptying pods of their sweet peas, tossing them into our mouths like candy.  

It’s hard to shake our idyllic ideas about farming, the ones we learned from our grandparents or from children’s picture books. The happy farm animals, the sun shining on the bright red silo. Actual farmers tell a different story (follow along with former columnist Joe Villines’s Iowa Farm Companion for his monthly updates on the challenges and, yes, the pleasures). But Bluedot celebrates the farmers who hew as close to the ideal as they can — treating both animals and soil with respect — and then sharing the bounty with us, as sweet as a summer pea.

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

– Leslie Garrett (and Emily Cain, Jamie Kageleiry, and Robin Jones)

Editors

Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com

Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades.  She makes her home in Canada, west of Toronto. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.

Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Martha’s Vineyard, says her favorite spot on earth is out on a kayak there, looking at birds.

Robin Jones is a Southern California native who served as an editor at Westways magazine for more than a decade. She lives in Long Beach and teaches journalism at Cal State Long Beach.

Emily Cain is a recent graduate of Cal State Long Beach, where she wrote and edited for the university’s award-winning magazine, DIG.

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