How to Build Walls with Pallets

August 8, 2016

Design

...by Ron S. But pallets can be tough to work with. The wood splinters easily making disassembly a tricky proposition (watch the Garden Fork TV pallet breaker video if you want to go down that route). Famed internet pallet guru Michael Janzen, of Tiny Pallet House, proposes leaving your pallets whole and adding a 2×4 to the end to make them into a kind of building block. The 2x4s can be new or salvaged from broken pallets. With the added 2×4 you can...

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Best veggies to cook in a solar oven

Mrs. Homegrown

August 5, 2016

Food, Recipes, Solar Oven Summer

2 Comments

...eaming is one of your favorite cooking methods, you’re in luck. Generally speaking you just throw any veggie in a covered pan and let them steam in their own juices. In some cases it helps to add a smidge of water to bottom of the pan. Vegetables which I give my personal seal of approval for solar oven cooking are, for me, those vegetables I happily eat steamed. These foods also happen to be very summery vegetables, well suited to backyard enterta...

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Root Simple is 10 Years Old

Mr. Homegrown

July 13, 2016

Thoughtstylings

20 Comments

...r bigger publishers!). We ended up writing a how-to book for Rodale called Making It. Thank You! Root Simple is a group effort and there are many people to thank: our web designer Roman Jaster and our logo designer Eric Thomason. Caroline Clerc did the cute cartoons that adorn our masthead. And we thank our publishers Process Media and Rodale. We’ve also met many fine journalists after the book came out, such as Michael Tortorello who wrote a nice...

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088 Eric of Garden Fork TV on Raised Beds, Coleslaw and Deep Frying

Mr. Homegrown

June 29, 2016

Food, Gardening, Podcasts

...te Garden Fork. We talk about using pressure treated wood for raised beds, making coleslaw and Eric’s adventures in deep frying (bacon wrapped grilled cheese!) among other topics. During our conversation Eric mentions: The Garden Fork Youtube channel Pressure treated wood video Homemade pallet breaker How to build raised beds How to make coleslaw OXO salad spinner Bacon grilled cheese sandwich Deep fried Twinkies Donuts made from biscuit dough 360...

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SolSource Review Part I: Assembly

Mr. Homegrown

June 17, 2016

Appropriate Technology, Solar, Solar Oven Summer, Water and Power

4 Comments

When we wrote our second book, Making It, I wanted to include a parabolic solar cooker project. I found a castoff satellite TV dish and covered it with aluminum foil. The problem was how to position a cooking surface in front of it while simultaneously tracking the sun. If you knew how to weld this might be possible– if still a challenging project. I just couldn’t figure out a way to do it without custom welding and gave up on my dream of solar g...

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