Abandonded Christmas trees: the sad sights of January

...hese, all I see is organic matter crying out to return to the earth. These trees don’t want to go to the landfill, they want to stay in the flow, to become nutrients and habitat. The way I see it, we owe them decent treatment in return for the joy they gave us over the holidays. It’s not that hard to strip the branches off a tree, and throw those branches and needles beneath another tree as mulch. The trunk can be made into firewood–or hugelkultur...

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A Homemade Mattress?

...the wool. It took her about 6 hours to fill the mattress. 3) Here is a webpage, in French, showing the mattress making process. Lots of useful pictures. I have to run it through Google Translate for more clues. 4) Do not fall for the eHow result if you search for how to make a wool mattress. It gets off to a great start by recommending you use glue, rather than stitching, to construct your mattress tick . (They call the tick a “fabric sheet pouch...

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Looking for the Union Label

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

...u lay down something more like 8 inches (20 cm)). You can also mulch fruit trees with compost instead of wood-based mulch, to give the soil life there a boost, or lay down an inch or so of compost, and then top with mulch. When mulching your trees and bushes, be sure to leave a couple of inches between the mulch and their trunks. You don’t want the mulch creeping up the trunk–it’s not healthy for the wood. Mulching your paths, seating and play are...

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