The Sundiner–A Groovy 1960s Era Solar Cooker

...e seen, both commercial and homebrew, have shelves with adjustable angles, making it easier to use them as crock pots. Nevertheless, I admire the efficiency of the design–the legs also double as a handle and the panels unfold and snap together in seconds. It’s easy to aim. The instructions are even printed on the back of the panel that covers the reflectors. More info via the April 1963 issue of Desert Magazine: Here’s a new product that suits des...

Read…

Book Review: My Side of the Mountain

...ok-learning alone. He needs a kindly old man to demonstrate the whole fire making process to him. So not only does the book show that failures are the merely part of the road to success, it also teaches us that sometimes we can figure things out by ourselves, if we persevere, but that sometimes we need good books, and sometimes we need good people to help us and show us the way. Erik and I speak of this often, in our books, on this blog and in our...

Read…

How to Search for Science-Based Gardening Advice

...ting to “agriculture, environment, veterinary sciences, applied economics, food science and nutrition.” Biosis–A citation index for the life sciences. Web of Science–information in “sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.” GREENfile–“draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollutio...

Read…

Supper for a buck?

...One pound of dry beans makes about 6 cups of cooked beans. That’s a lot of food. I’m not going to try to do the math and add up the costs of the onion and herbs and olive oil I add to the beans. And I surely don’t have the patience to figure out the cost of the salad from our garden (do I have to figure in the mortgage?), but I do know that around this time of year I could forage a salad for free from the spring weeds. But for the sake of a sensat...

Read…

Best veggies to cook in a solar oven

...ar oven cooking are, for me, those vegetables I happily eat steamed. These foods also happen to be very summery vegetables, well suited to backyard entertaining and as companions to grilled foods: Potatoes Artichokes Corn on the cob Baked potatoes and lentil stew HOW TO: Baked Potatoes This is the easiest of the easy. Just wash off a couple of big russets and tuck them into a covered pan. Potatoes cook in about 4 hours when temps are approximately...

Read…