The Elysium Delusion

...x things on earth, let’s all get the hell out–it’s the ultimate form of suburban flight. NASA’s 1970s era version of Elysium The heyday of space colonization futurism was the 1970s. But space station fantasies have reappeared in popular culture recently. At the end of the recently released movie Elysium [spoiler alert] the evil French speaking space colonists (who look like Armani clad Santa Barbarans) have their computer reset by Matt Damon who,...

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Modern Farmer Magazine

...I haven’t seen a print copy of this magazine, but they sure have a great blog going. The blog has an interesting article on citrus greening as well as evidence that modern farmer’s writers have a sense of humor. And it’s nice to see farming connected with good graphic design....

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Extension Service Webinars on Organic Agriculture

...just discovered a treasure trove of Extension Service webinars on organic farming practices that you can watch here: http://www.extension.org/pages/25242/webinars-by-eorganic. You can watch archived sessions or sign up to participate live. While the webinars are aimed at small farmers, there’s a lot that gardeners can learn. Having co-founded a bread baking club, the Los Angeles Bread Bakers, I was particularly excited to watch the webinar on anc...

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What To Do With Old Vegetable Seeds

...to see what comes up. Fukuoka has some tips in his book The Natural Way of Farming for creating a semi-wild vegetable garden: Include nitrogen fixers (in my case some clover seeds) Use daikon and other radishes to break up hard soil Sow before weeds emerge Scott Kleinrock has used the same strategy at the Huntington Gardens. Here’s what his semi-wild vegetable garden, growing in the understory of some small fruit trees, looked like in January of t...

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Saturday Tweets: K-Cups, Kittens and Smartphone Microscopes

...KJlSkioYz via @TakePart — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 20, 2015 Factory Farming: Was the World Created for Me? http://t.co/5vgfY983QV via @HuffPostRelig — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 19, 2015 Big Ag kills backyard chicken ordinance in Augusta: http://t.co/zdbsUdbFCi via @DailyProgress — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 18, 2015 Depaving Cities, Undamming Rivers—Here’s How We’re Undoing the Damage http://t.co/j0dYhsvYoL #TogetherWithEarth pic...

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