A Self-Watering Container in a Pot

...e only way to grow water-needy vegetables reliably in a container. We have used them to successfully grow eggplants, tomatoes, collard greens and blueberries (note to the DEA: no cash crops at the Homegrown Revolution compound!). With our backyard looking fairly ugly this summer we’ve backpedaled on our earlier strident post about how we don’t care if our patio looks like a methamphetamine lab, and have dressed up one of our SWCs. Here’s how we di...

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What Equipment do I Need to Keep Bees?

...ou need to get stung! Dadant has an integrated hat/veil jumpsuit that I’ve used for years. This suit is one piece, meaning that there’s no gap between your veil and suit for bees to climb up in and I like that it covers your whole body. Tuck the pant legs into boots and you’re good to go. Bees can still do a kind of half sting through the material, so I wear long sleeve shirts and long pants if I’m doing something where the bees could get angry, s...

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We are all gardeners

...ters as it does in those about child development. The phrase is also often used in permacultural circles, where — by oral tradition, at least — it is attributed to Bill Mollison, though after a solid half hour of searching I haven’t been able to find a citation of him saying this in print. In permacultural terms, to say we are all gardeners means simply that everything we do influences our environment. Whether we will it or not, our daily decision...

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Saturday Linkages: Mobile Pods, Soil Erosion and Getting Doored by a Porta-Potty

...come Water-Sustainable http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/commentary/report-offers-a-way-for-california-to-become-water-sustainable.html … Man on bike strikes porta-potty door; two hurt: http://bit.ly/1pisQdq Could a medicine used to treat gout also save our citrus? http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/could-a-medicine-used-to-treat-gout-also-save-our-citrus … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter:...

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Who Killed the Non-Electric Toaster?

...ind an alternative and remembered seeing non-electric toasters that people used to use back in the 1920s when our house was built. These types of toasters have not died out entirely. Most non-electric toaster designs look like the one above. Some Googling also led us to an innovative looking non-electric toaster called the DeltaToast. Counter-intuitively, all of these simple stove top toasters coast about twice as much as electric toaster, at leas...

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