Build a Solar Dehydrator

October 1, 2008

Appropriate Technology, Preparedness, Solar

...this “Appalachian Dehydrator”, designed by Appalachian State University’s Appropriate Technology Program, in the February/March 1997 issue of Home Power Magazine. The February/March 1999 issue of Home Power features a refinement of this plan, but we just built the original design and it works fine. The original plans and improvements to those plans are split between two articles: Issue #57 and Issue #69. You need to download and read through both...

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A Parvati Solar Cooker

Mr. Homegrown

March 24, 2008

Solar

4 Comments

...vindra Pardeshi that can be found here. Pardeshi, who runs an “appropriate technology” company with her husband in India has another design for a similar dish-shaped cooker here. We found both of these cookers (and many more) via the amazing Solar Cooking Archive. For the Parvati cooker, we cut the cardboard according to the plans, and affixed the aluminum foil with spray glue. For our first pot of rice we used a black enamel pot to better absorb...

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Why I’m Growing Vegetables in a Straw Bale

Mr. Homegrown

May 29, 2019

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

10 Comments

...rtment grow some herbs in a pot on your windowsill. If you’re a dilettante appropriate technology blogger with limited time for gardening and a long list of chores, a straw bale and a bag of urea might be the best way to keep the kitchen knee deep in pesto. If you’d like to try straw bale gardening see Washington Statue University’s instructions. Michael Tortorello also wrote a great article about straw bale gardening, “Grasping at Straw” for the...

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Is Facebook Useful?

Mr. Homegrown

November 30, 2015

Thoughtstylings

34 Comments

...book wants me to pay to promote posts. So instead I mostly use my personal page to promote stuff with limited success. But, worst of all, Facebook has distracted me from responding to comments on this blog and, instead, focusing on comment threads on Facebook. It may be futile, but it’s time to fight back. What I’ve resolved to do I’m not going to give up on Facebook just yet. I can’t really. As authors we have to use it to promote our work and ev...

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How to Search for Science-Based Gardening Advice

Mr. Homegrown

February 24, 2014

Gardening

13 Comments

...d a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling and more.” All of these databases overlap to some extent and you’ll probably need to check more than one to be thorough. They will also deliver results from trade and popular sources (not a bad thing, of course, but these sources are not...

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