Picture Sundays: A Keyhole Bed and Straw Bale Garden in Texas

John W. from Kerrville, Texas sent in some pictures of his garden. John says, This is my first year to use compost tea.  I am growing plants in two Keyhole Gardens, self watering 5 gal plastic buckets and two hay bales (coastal Bermuda hay) that have a wooden framework on top containing bulk landscaping compost from a local nursery. My plants are growing super fast and my tomatoes are loaded.  This looks to be the best garden I have ever had. J...

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Picture Sundays: Harvard’s Glass Flower Collection

Photo ©President & Fellows Harvard College, photo of Blaschka Glass Model by Hillel Burger. This cactus is made out of glass. Root Simple reader tworose tipped me off to the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s collection of glass flowers. According to the museum’s website: This unique collection of over 3,000 models was created by glass artisans Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolph. The commission began in 1886, continued for fi...

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Picture Sundays: Bile Beans

ETA: Kelly says: Bile beans on Easter Sunday? Oh, Erik. I’m adding the following photo to this post. It’s really exciting that a Barred Rock is featured in the photo, plus, it illustrates the ambiguous relationship between rabbits and eggs that marks Easter: a persistent ambiguity that leads little kids to believe bunnies lay eggs, or at least the chocolate ones. Here, the bunny seems to have domesticated the hen as both an...

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Picture Sundays: Makin’ Adobes

From the Library of Congress image archive “Spanish-American removing form shaped adobe brick. The adobe brick is next dried by the sun. Chamisal, New Mexico. July 1940.” This is exactly what I’ve been doing in my spare time for a few weeks now in preparation for an upcoming earth oven workshop. I’m on adobe #50–45 more to go! And, from the same archive, an adobe chicken coop: “Scene in the adobe brick chic...

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Picture Sundays: Your Livestock Can Survive Fallout from Nuclear Attack

The US Department of Agriculture published this handy pamplett circa 1962. The USDA’s main recommendation? Get yourself a “two-story, basement-type barn with a hay-filled loft,  to “reduce radiation exposure [to your animals by] as much as 80 percent.” Thanks to the interwebs you can download your own copy here. And, something for the kids. There’s a film version–featuring marionettes!...

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