Fish Don’t Fart

...omes out of their work at Austin’s Rhizome Collective. What all of these efforts have in common is a permacultural design principle of turning a waste product into a resource and closing a loop. Fish make fertilizer and plants clean water, so why not combine the two? I’d like to hear stories from ordinary folks who have tried aquaponics on a small scale. If that’s you, leave a comment!...

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Homegrown Evolution in Chicago

...ready two-bucket sub-irrigated planter (SIP). –Enough potting mix, organic fertilizer, and powdered lime to plant your tomato. –An organic heirloom tomato plant, from the Green Roof Growers seed-starting group –Comprehensive understanding of how SIPs work and how to plant yours once you get home. MAY 21 HOMESTEADING 101 with Erik Knutzen 7-9pm $7-10 (sliding scale) Experimental Station 6100 South Blackstone, Chicago Register with: nettlesting@yaho...

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Pee on your Compost

...rvesting. There is even a book called Liquid Gold on the subject of pee as fertilizer and the ever more resourceful Europeans have developed a number of urine diverting flush toilets similar to the one we profiled earlier to take the labor out of urine saving. Perhaps the most convenient way to use urine is to simply pee on your compost pile. That way you don’t need to worry about saving it in a container and diluting it. As, no joke here, British...

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Moringa!

...tanical oil. The seed cake remaining after oil extraction may be used as a fertilizer. The bark, sap, roots, leaves, seeds, oil and flowers are used in traditional medicine in several countries. In Jamaica, the sap is used for a blue dye. The flowers are also cooked and relished as a delicacy in West Bengal and Bangladesh, especially during early spring. There it is called Sojne ful and is usually cooked with green peas and potato. Some organizati...

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