Search Results for: label/water conservation/2011/04/making-it

822 results

Quick Tip: DIY Decaf Tea

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Domesticus, Food, How-to
16 Comments
...tea as you normally would, but start counting as soon as you pour the hot water. After at least 30 seconds but no more than 1 minute you pour off all of what has brewed so far. And yes, that’s all the good stuff. It’s sad, but being all headachey and jittery is sad too, so I do it. Then you top off the tea leaves with fresh hot water and start the brew again. This one you drink. Commercially decaf tea is lower in caffeine than this homebrew–just...

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Getting started with worms

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Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture
8 Comments
...icompost adds nutrients and good bacteria to the soil and help soil retain water. Plants love it. In a worm bin, your garbage becomes black gold! Worm bins vs. compost piles While vegetable scraps can also be put into compost bins, not everyone has the space or the time or the physical strength to maintain a compost pile. Worm bins, though, are easy to maintain and can fit into every lifestyle, from a single person living in an apartment to a big...

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An Ancient Quince Recipe

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Food, Food Preservation, Fruit Trees, Gardening
16 Comments
...website, but to summarize you simply cook quince in equal parts honey and water until it turns red. The addition of a small amount of cracked pepper cuts the sweetness ever so slightly. You can then process the jars in a hot water bath. The end result is quince slices preserved in honey. It turned out great and, without having to worry about the jell point, reduced the anxiety level associated with preserving my entire harvest at once. Do you hav...

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Compost Piles on Fire!

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Composting, Gardening
8 Comments
...en with a low moisture, large pile with little air exchange, combined with water getting into the pile in a place where there is enough air to support biological activity and chemical oxidation, but not enough to cool the pile. An old, dry compost pile, or a pile of overs screened out of the finished product, is a case in point. Water seeping into the dry compost can restart microbial activity and initiate reheating. A “macropore” or crack from th...

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The Hugelkultur Question

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Gardening, Permaculture
48 Comments
...contend that the logs break down and become open fungal pathways to store water and nutrients. Kelly suggested we take an unused raised bed in our front yard and try an at-grade hugelkultur experiment (mounding in our dry climate seems like a bad idea, especially given our current drought). I balked at the amount of digging that would be involved. Kelly suggested that we should try it since we had little to lose and we’re supposed to be experimen...

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