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Natalie Gale

Boston-based freelance journalist.

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The Good Trade •

The Best Xeriscape Alternatives To A Traditional Grass Lawn

In a faceoff between nature and a lawn, nature wins every time. Maintaining a lawn is an uphill battle, involving thousands of gallons of water, herbicides, and lawnmowers.

Zoom out beyond your yard to the environment beyond, and headlines are hard to keep up with. Droughts rack the United States yearly, bee populations shrink, and soil quality declines. Cue the eco-anxiety.

But zoom back in—one of the most valuable eco-solutions lurks right in your backyard. And it’s even simpler than going o
Boston.com •

Art spurs climate change discussion in museums here and across the U.S.

Earlier this year, when volunteers painted trees in downtown Salem bright blue for a new Peabody Essex Museum installation, a passerby remarked that the trees hadn’t always been there.

“He walked up and asked us what we were doing, as many did,” recalled Jane Winchell, the director of PEM’s Art & Nature Center and curator of Natural History. “And he said, ‘These trees weren’t here before, right?’ But the trees had been there for years, passed unnoticed by many, until they were painted blue for
The Good Trade •

What Is Food Sovereignty? — The Good Trade

Have you heard the term “food sovereignty?” The movement has gathered steam in recent years, with the term regularly popping up in publications like The Guardian, Forbes, and Business Insider. While first coined by La Via Campesina, an “international peasants movement” representing small, rural farmers around the world, at the 1996 World Food Summit, we’re hearing about food sovereignty a lot more frequently—and for a good reason. It turns out that food sovereignty has a lot to do with the futur
Boston.com Real Estate •

Boston to launch curbside food waste collection in August - Gardening, News

Boston will soon pick up food-only waste curbside, along with trash and recycling, for residents interested in composting their food scraps.

Food waste accounts for one-third of Boston’s waste stream, according to Boston chief of streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge, and it’s the country’s largest single landfill material according to the FDA. When food waste rots in landfills instead of being composted, it produces methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

But when food waste is separated fr
Boston.com •

Watching 'Julia' on HBO? Check out some of her favorite Boston spots

HBO Max recently released “Julia,” an eight-episode dramedy about the life and work of pioneering chef Julia Child.

While she was born in California and studied culinary arts in France, she and her husband Paul moved to Cambridge in 1961 where they lived for 40 years.

The impact Child brought to Cambridge’s community and its culinary scene is still felt today, if only you know where to look.

It was in their home at 103 Irving St. that Child filmed three of her television series—”In Julia’s Ki
Boston.com •

Boston ordinance would reduce carbon emissions more than 60% by 2050

Boston’s Air Pollution Control Commission recently approved the first phase of regulations for the newly passed BERDO 2.0 ordinance, a piece of legislation that’ll curb Boston’s carbon emissions more than 60% by 2050.

BERDO 2.0, or the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance 2.0, requires Boston’s largest buildings, those 20,000 square feet and over, to decrease their emissions gradually over the coming years, hitting net-zero emissions by 2050.

For perspective, 20,000 square fee
Northshore Magazine •

Rhode Island’s Weekapaug Inn Combines Yankee Charm and Unparalleled Service

As I drove south toward the Weekapaug Inn, the landscape became increasing bucolic—highways gave away to small villages of pretty Victorian-era houses sprinkled throughout rolling farmland. The weekend getaway felt like it had already started. Finally, I saw the ocean, and then the Weekapaug Inn.

The inn dates to 1899, when Fredrick and Phebe Buffum opened a small inn on a little spit of land in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Quonochontaug Pond on the ot