Garden Upgrade: Warm Hearth Warm Hearts

This is the first in a series where we will detail specific innovations we are practicing at the Garden of Eden.

Enduring the first pangs of a long and brutal winter, we turn our focus to the workhorse of the kitchen, the fireside forum of our family chats – our humble wood stove.

The hearth is the heart of the sun room and kitchen. Here’s ours:

The stove in question.

Just a standard wood-burning stove. Immediately it is an upgrade over a gas furnace or electric heat, because it is cheaper and it is fueled by wood, a renewable resource. In most locales, wood is abundant. Considering that we only really need to use the stove for a few months out of the year, and even then only for part of the day, a few trees can power the stove for a long time. Of course there are many opportunities to buy wood, but with a small amount of creativity, anyone can get most, if not all, of their supply for free.*

Carmelizing onions.

In December especially, we see the quasi-functionality of this apparatus. At a basic level, we burn wood for heat. In our house, the stove is not enough to heat all of the rooms, but instead of using space heaters (or leaving the gas oven on :),