Erik on HuffPost Live Tonight

...activities and sustainable living are back. Say Hello to Victory Gardens 2.0!” You can watch here. Guests include: Barbara Finnin Executive Director of City Slicker Farms Erik Knutzen Author of “The Urban Homestead” and Founder of Root Simple Rob Ludlow Owner of BackYardChickens.com The show will be archived and I’ll post a link when it appears on the HuffPost website....

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A Question About Freezing and Canning Home Grown Vegetables

...s sort of preservation. Frozen berries, for example, are fantastic for jam making. If I need to make some peach jam out of season, I head straight to the frozen fruit section of the grocery store. Your caller was asking about vegetables, of course, and there would be some nuances. First, they will want to be sure to freeze the vegetables properly, such as blanching certain veggies to set color and stop enzymatic reactions. Following the guidelines...

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How to Search for Science-Based Gardening Advice

...ave access to tools beyond Google. Hot Topics To that end, I’m thinking of making the trek to UCLA this year to look into a number of controversial horticultural and homesteading questions that have come up in the course of writing posts on Root Simple. Some topics I’m interested in: The effect of chloramine on soil health/human health. The temperament of Africanized bees. Hugelkultur in dry climates. Compost tea. Phytoremediation of lead and/or z...

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Community Power! Elect Hugo Soto-Martinez!

...ary working people. He supports building social housing, jobs programs and making our streets safer for everyone. You can read more about his platform on his website. Electing Hugo is just the beginning. There’s a lot of work to do to turn this city around. Thankfully, more people are starting to pay attention to local elections. You can help out by going to my fundraising page for Hugo and chipping in a few dollars. Wherever you are you can be a...

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Happy Cranksgiving

...ent’s new closing guidelines and came to the conclusion that they are just making stuff up on the fly. Some things are open and some closed and it’s obvious that the decisions aren’t based on any research since their probably isn’t any. When you see a multi page list of directions for “model airplane facilities” you know they are winging it. Again, the solution is simple. In a surge like we’re having right now, close everything except what we need...

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