Straw Bale Garden Part V: Growing Vegetables

...seedlings. Others, like this cucumber, I sowed directly into the bales by making a little hole and putting in the seed with some home made seedling mix. Again, the vegetables in the bales are doing better than veggies in my two remaining raised beds. The reason, I believe, is that the beds are depleted and the compost I added to them was low quality. While more resource intensive than growing in the ground or raised bed, straw bale gardening has...

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Saturday Linkages: An Egg Shaped Houseboat, Bamboo Joints and the Origins of Umami

...was-coined-by-the-inventor-of-msg-to-describe-i-693953580 … Why lettuce is making us sick: http://modernfarmer.com/2013/07/why-lettuce-keeps-making-us-sick/ … Devolution In Oregon, The GMO Wheat Mystery Deepens http://n.pr/15CRyHO Study: Wealthier Motorists More Likely to Drive Like Reckless Jerks http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/07/16/study-wealthier-motorists-more-likely-to-drive-like-reckless-jerks/ … Gardena PD Ticket, Harass United Riders of So...

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Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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The Degrowth Paradigm

...element of faith. It’s so deeply ingrained into our cultural narratives. Growth is something that is seen as necessary, where in actual fact, we could probably be a lot happier with less consumption. The show begins with an interview with Jim Merkel, author of Radical Simplicity, Small Footprints on a Finite Earth and concludes with a visit to the radical degrowth activists of Catalan, Spain. To those of you who haven’t jumped on the podcast bandw...

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Licensed to Rant

...simplify, simplify, simplify.” In the case of transportation, my notion of simplicity involves a few special requirements. First requirement: No permits, licenses, government registrations, or bureaucratic involvement at all. I know it’s naive in this super-governed age, but I’m foolish enough to hold fast to the belief that in a truly free country people travel peaceably on the roads without being stopped and hassled by “the authorities” and with...

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