Whistle Stop Book Tour of the Northwest

              Erik does in fact bear an uncanny resemblance to Pierre Trudeau. Credit: Duncan Cameron/National Archives of Canada, PA-136972 Rodale, the publisher of our new book, is sending us on a speaking tour of the Pacific Northwest to promote Making It . Bringing this sort of groovy, DIY info to all you hardcore locavores, transitioners, freegans, goat herds and urban hillbillies in SF, Seattle and Portland seems a bit like bringi...

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Mud for the People! Building an Adobe Garden Wall

of the workshop, but pieced together what Kurt and Ben went over. One of the first steps is to determine the clay/sand content of your soil and to do that you do a jar test. When you mix some soil with water in a jar and let it sit, the clay settles on top, the silt below that, and the sand on bottom. You can measure the sample and determine percentages. At the workshop, held in the high desert town of Landers, CA the sand and clay were source...

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Handmade, Homegrown Apron Contest

Homegrown Evolution reader Pam Neuendorf has offered fellow readers a chance to win one of her handmade aprons. She sells her wares through Etsy, a website where crafters and artisans can sell their goods. You can see more of her aprons here. She has an ordinary day job but is a maven of craft by night. Pam says, “I love making aprons. They make me happy.” I am a big fan of aprons. They are useful for cooking, gardening or just lo...

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A Parvati Solar Cooker

Damn, is solar cooking easy! Put some rice in a pot, place the pot in this simple panel cooker, made with cardboard and aluminum foil, stick it out in the sun and two hours later you have lunch. We built our “Parvati” solar cooker with plans designed by Shobha Ravindra Pardeshi that can be found here. Pardeshi, who runs an “appropriate technology” company with her husband in India has another design for a similar dish-sha...

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Digital Farming- What’s The Deal?

...most popular. You can get seeds to plant, watch your crops grow and then harvest them. Some people are so addicted that they are eschewing real life responsibilities and social obligations to harvest their virtual soybeans. It is even suggested that the popularity of these farming games is indicative of a collective yearning for a more pastoral life. I’m not sure I get this. I spend all day outside in the dirt making things grow. At sundo...

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In Praise of Disorder

...poultry, and front yard vegetable gardening, to mention just a few. Ideally you have a balance between order and disorder–neither gunfire nor the prying eyes of city inspectors. Where I’m staying in Houston, with its flocks of loose chickens, packs of feral dogs, and broken down bungalows seems just about right. Our neighborhood in Los Angeles is seeming less ideal with the news from Mrs. Homegrown Evolution, that we’ve earned...

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Why are the pockets on women’s clothing so lame?

...carry bags, therefore do not need pockets. This is false. Women carry bags because we have inadequate pockets, and we figure we may as well carry extra stuff–because why not? We have to carry the !&^%$  bag anyway. It’s a terrible cycle. Another belief seems to be women don’t want pockets because they will bulk up the sleek lines of our fashions, making us look chunky through the hips. And it is true that form-fitting cloth...

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Compost and Pharmaceuticals

...If you know of more please leave a link in the comments. A 2010 study looked at the degradation of salinomycin, used on chickens to prevent coccidiosis. The study concluded, On the basis of the results obtained in this study, it appears that the composting technique is effective in reducing salinomycin in manure. Another 2010 study looked at the composting of sewage sludge containing fluoroquinolones (broad spectrum antibiotics), The concentratio...

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