Fast, Cheap, and Good: Sustainability, One Choice at a Time

Fast, Cheap, and Good is a philosophy of homemaking. I believe that we can care for ourselves and our families by adopting simple lifestyle habits and techniques that will improve our health, our connection to and stewardship of our world, and our finances, all without depending on a larger organization to help us through.

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Friday, December 29, 2017

Taking a Fast, Cheap, and Good Break

Seven years. For seven years, I've been writing this blog, hoping to inspire some of you to live lives that are more respectful of your...

Friday, December 8, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: October and November 2017

Sigh. I hate when the garden gives up, which, inevitably, it did in mid-October. Most of the tallies I'll share with you in this post...

Friday, November 24, 2017

Butternut Squash Pie

I usually have good luck with butternut squash in my garden, and it is one of my favorite crops to grow. It is easy, it grows well in our ...

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

The Real Reason to Avoid Keurig

This week, the world has been treated to an intense internet debate over whether to boycott Keurig, the makers of the one cup at a time co...

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Tickets to Paradise: A History of Key West Travel and its Advertising, 1912-1975

Excuse the shameless self-promotion, but I really have to let you guys in on this. For the past three and a half years, I've been wo...

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: September 2017

(This post's photo is from a line of hand embroidered tea towels at my Etsy store, Carrot Creations. See it here. ) And just like t...

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Interlude: On A Day Working in the Fall Garden.

I do not like your wretched fall. I do not like the fall at all! I do not like the falling leaves. I do not like to wear long sleeves....

Monday, September 25, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: August 2017

Finally! It is nearly the end of September, and I am finally updating you on the garden progress through August. You really never know bus...

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Lessons Watching Irma from Afar

As you all know by now, I am in love with Key West, so I've spent a nail-biting four days watching Hurricane Irma approach and pass ov...

Monday, August 28, 2017

The End is Near

Well, the garden is starting to give up. I hate to say that. I, after all, am the person who started my seeds in an incubator in the dinin...

Monday, August 21, 2017

Sustainability or Not?

So, yesterday I had an interesting experience. I visited an organic farm (which I will not name here, but which was really, really cool), ...

Monday, August 7, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: July 2017

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2017 garden is officially profitable! I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself, if I might say. The return t...

Monday, July 31, 2017

The Annual Canning Melt-Down

To say that I'm under a bit of stress recently would be an understatement. Somehow, between July and October, I need to develop and ...

Monday, July 17, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: June 2017

Have I mentioned lately how much I love June in the garden? Yes, I know its July already. I'm finally doing the June tallies, and th...

Monday, July 10, 2017

Is Gardening a Subversive Act?

(Note: The illustration is from a product available on my RedBubble store. Find it here. ) Well, it's summer once again, and the n...

Monday, June 26, 2017

Radish-Onion Relish

I love raw radishes; Mr. FC&G does not, finding them too sharp for his tastes. So, in the years I grow them, I often have more than I ...

Thursday, June 15, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: May 2017

Finally! After a couple of months of nursing increasingly-enormous tomato plants and neither spending nor harvesting anything, the garden ...

Monday, June 5, 2017

Of Coffee and Avocados

Most of my philosophy of sustainable living is based on controlling small things. I've told you to plant a single basil plant, elimina...

Monday, May 22, 2017

The Myth of the "Extra" Tomato

So it's happened again. I mentioned the number of tomato plants I put in this year (60, as of last count), and a well-meaning, ...

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

How the World's Best Ballroom Dancer Picked My Kitchen Sink

Note: In response to a conversation I was having about the joys of home ownership, I wrote this account of the tragic winter of 2008-09 wh...

Friday, April 28, 2017

More of DIY Weedkillers

Last week, I wrote about using DIY weed killers in place of commercial herbicides that are available for a premium price stacked in you...

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Weed Killers without Poison

Spring is finally here! And along with the ability to wear flip flops, get out in the garden, and sneeze my fool head off because of the ...

Friday, April 7, 2017

Salted Caramel Applesauce Cookies

Some of my favorite cookies are those with chips in them. There are just so many flavors of chips out there, you can come up with a ton of...

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Ferrying the Tomatoes

Somewhere between Groundhog Day and St. Patrick's Day, depending on your growing zone and how impatient you are, is the right time to ...

Thursday, March 16, 2017

How Much Does a Garden Grow: January and February 2017

As always, winter is a slow time in the garden, but that doesn't mean there's nothing happening. In fact, the year has started off...

Friday, March 10, 2017

On Using the Good China

I was looking at some advertising from the 1940s and 1950s the other day, when post-war affluence met demographic trends to create the bri...

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Reusable Swiffer (TM) Mop Covers

For a long time, I've been intending to crochet some reusable covers for my Swiffer mop,. And, since the weekend past was boring and...

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About Me

Jennifer Lorenzetti: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti had her first garden – and her first compost pile – at the age of eight. Armed with vintage canning recipes from her grandmother and great-aunt, she began her journey toward sustainable homemaking, adding skills in textile arts, food preparation, and savvy shopping and budgeting. In 1997, she founded Hilltop Communications, a writing and speaking firm dedicated to making complex topics accessible for a variety of audiences and through a variety publications and venues. She has written hundreds of articles for a variety of clients, and her work has received a TABBIE Honorable Mention for Best Technical Article. In 2009, she married the two passions and started “Fast, Cheap, and Good,” the blog that draws on her experiences as a writer and homemaker dedicated to pursuing a better life with fewer resources. She is available for writing, speaking, and consulting.

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