Press
Lodestar Gardens has penned its fair share of articles over the years, as well as being independently featured. Below you’ll find a growing archive of our articles and press clippings.
Selected Articles on Food Production & Homesteading
By Barbara Hockabout, Lodestar Gardens, LLC
Publications Archive:
The Maverick: High Country Guide Magazine
2014
- Feb “A Call to Growers, Gardeners, and Grubbers: Stay the Course in 2014”
- May “Images of Spring” by the Lodestar Grassroots Co-Op
- July “Cultivating a Spirit of Experimentation at Lodestar Gardens Learning Center”
- Oct “Stretching the Goodness in Your Garden”
- Nov “Stretching the Kitchen: Calisthenics for the Resilient Household-Part One”
- Dec “Stretching the Kitchen: – Part 2”
2015
- Jan “Cultivating a Garden in Your Mind: Part 1 – Starting with a Strawberry”
- Feb “Creating a Food Village: Building Food Security for Our Region One Greenhouse at a Time” (a collaborative writing effort by the Lodestar Grassroots Co-Op)
- March “When the Lights Go Out: Alternative Heating, Cooking, Lighting & Healing Strategies” by the Lodestar Grassroots Co-Op
- April “Cultivating a Garden in Your Life-Part2” (compiled by Lodestar Gardens Grassroots Food Co-Op)
- May “Food Villages = Food Security: Are You Ready to Grow?
- June Jeff Storey’s Art: Generosity in Action”
- Oct “Food Villages = Food Security: Are You Ready to Grow?”
- Nov “Eat a Fresh, Local Salad Every Day of the Year: Discover the World of Asian Greens by the Lodestar Gardens Grassroots Co-Op (feeding six households year round since 2013–Labor-for-Harvest)
2016
- Feb “What is a Rural Activist?”
- March “Staying at Home”
- April “Celebrate Spring, Walk a Labyrinth”
- June-July “The Beauty in Decay”
- Aug “Got Zucchini? – Attend Late Summer Vegetable Swap Meets” (Concho Community Farmers’ Market)
- “The Stars Are Closer Here: Discovering New Art Form in Arizona’s Heavens” (Sept. 1, 2016)
- “Giving Back to Your Community Can Be Easy and Fun” (Nov. 11, 2016)
- December “Shop, Eat, Learn at the Lodestar Winter Farmers Market”
2017
- Growing Love: The Ecosystem of Garden and Human Relationships (March 10, 2017)
- New Trust-Based Currency: Bartering, Swapping, Loaning, Gifting (Jan. 25, 2017)
- March “What’s a WWOOFer?: Hope for Farmers and Local Food”
- April-May “Year-Round Food-Making: Join the Greenhouse Buzz”
- June-July “Start with a Bench”
- August-September “High Country Homesteaders: The Face of Modern Pioneers”
- October “Retail and Free Education: Lodestar and the Stanford Store Team Up”
- December “A Casts of Characters: Hats Off to Local Presenters at Lodestar Gardens”
2018
- March “Learn Growing Tricks and Methods—Tour Farms This Summer”
- April “Romancing the Soil: A New Approach to Creating Soil Vitality”
- May “Feeding a Crowd: The Slow Food Way”
2019
- May “New Medicine for a New Era”
- June “Let Your Love Grow!”
2020
- MAVERICK Magazine suspended distribution during Covid
2021
- February “Sowing Four Farmers at a Time”
- June “Faces in the Food Desert: Portraits of People I Meet in the Breadline.”
- October “Living Well and Aging Well”
2022
- March “WHO Will Most Likely Be Growing Local Food in the White Mountains in 2022—Part 1
- April “WHO will Most Likely be Growing Local Food in the White Mountains in 2022 and How Will People Access It? – Part 2”
- June The Zen of Watering Your Garden”
- October “Homesteading Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow—Part 1”
2023
- April “Ready…Set…Grow! Making Your Own Soil Amendments—Another notch in Closing the Sustainable Loop”
2024
- January “When Should I Start to Plant?”
- February “Growing Sustainability Into a Regenerative Lifestyle”
White Mountain Independent: NATURAL LIVING Supplement Submissions
FALL 2012
- “Visionary Farmers and Ranchers Working Together to Strengthen Food Shed” by Barbara Hockabout, facilitator for Navapache Growers and SDFAA gatherings
- “Lodestar Gardens: More Than Just Growing Things”
SPRING 2014
- “Lodestar Garden Learning Center: An Art-Farm-Laboratory Village”
- “Northern Arizona Food Groups in Apache and Navajo Counties Networking, Wisdom, Generosity, and Common Sense”
SPRING 2015
- “Calling All Positive Deviants: Finding Local Wisdom for Greater Food Security”
FALL/WINTER 2015
- “Be In Charge of Your Health: Create Your Own Food Village” and “Food Consciousness – An Explosion on the Mountain”
SPRING 2016
- “Reconceiving Sustainability”
FALL 2016
- “Lodestar Gardens Offers Self-Reliant Health and Lifestyle Strategies”
SPRING 2017
- Join the Backyard Revolution of 2017 (March 21, 2017) – White Mountain Independent
- Lodestar Gardens Hosts Saturday Winter Market (Feb. 17, 2017) – White Mountain Independent
Farm & Ranch Issue 2025
Lodestar Gardens’ cover feature and special issue in the Maverick Magazine





Research Collaborations & Experiments
Johnson-Su Bio-Reactor Composting Process (Ongoing)
We built a Johnson-Su Bioreactor––a static, aerobic composting system using a wire mesh cylinder designed to produce highly microbial, fungus-dominant compost in about a year without turning––and began the year-long biofurcation process of compost material. The amount of nutrition that emerges from this composting process is staggering, backed up by the data. This simple botanical biological process creates intensive composting even having success in Arizona.


IMO Soil Enhancements (Ongoing)
We’ve also experimented with using indigenous microorganisms. This is a fermentation-style compost that enhances the soil. The duff underneath our trees serves as the perfect fodder for this.

University of Arizona @ Yuma
- Study: Post-harvest Sanitation Methods Utilizing Natural Cleansing Agents
Lodestar Gardens has enjoyed collaborating with growers and researchers across the state of Arizona. Notably, we worked with a research team headed up by Professor Kurt Nolte from the University of Arizona in a study of post harvest sanitation methods utilizing natural cleansing agents.
The first phase of this project took place in the fall 2013 and 45 lbs of lettuce was grown at Lodestar Gardens for the project. The second phase of the research is scheduled for the spring of 2014. The goal is to find the most effective, yet least harsh cleaning agents and sanitation techniques for produce grown for markets. This is the first official scientific study with the attempt to verify the viability of alternative sanitation agents such as vinegar and peroxide. We are excited by the pure science being applied to the cleaning procedures we have used for years.



