Lost from the cradle of connection: the high price of driving

September 11, 2015

Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings, Transportation

...he way from the Santa Monica Mountains to Pyramid Lake. Cameras caught him making four freeway crossings in the past, and certainly he made more He had to cross highways. An adult mountain lion needs about 200 miles of home range to make a living. State officials call his death “Sad, but not surprising.” On August 10th, P32 became “roadkill.” Roadkill is an odd term, isn’t it? The road didn’t kill P32, a driver did. There’s some odd blameshifting...

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Does Compost Tea Work?

Mr. Homegrown

November 16, 2015

Composting, Gardening

5 Comments

...epticism. Thankfully, I can now point towards the eXtension.org webinar on making and using compost teas that I’ve embedded above. I’ll oversimplify things a bit with a few of my own bullet points inspired by what Dr. Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, Associate Professor of Sustainable and Organic Agriculture at Washington State University and Catherine Crosby, a Ph.D. candidate in Soil Science at Washington State University had to say in the webinar. Due to...

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Compost and Pharmaceuticals

Mr. Homegrown

May 2, 2013

Composting, Gardening, Humanure, Straw Bale Gardening

17 Comments

...made from sewage sludge may easily lead to the elevated concentrations in food plants, if the compost is used as a fertilizer. A slightly contradictory Estonian study concluded: In the current study, uptake of ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, sulfadimethoxine and sulfamethoxazole was demonstrated in lettuce. The uptake of fluoroquinolones and sulfonamides by plants like lettuce does not seem to be a major human health risk, as the detected...

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Straw Bale Gardens

Mr. Homegrown

March 25, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

27 Comments

Tasha Via’s straw bale garden. Michael Tortorello (who profiled us when Making It came out) is one of my favorite writers covering the home ec/gardening subjects we discuss on this blog. He had an article last week in the New York Times, “Grasping at Straw” on straw bale gardening. We’ve very tempted to give the practice a try in our backyard. Why? We have lead and zinc contaminated soil so growing veggies in the ground is questionable. We live o...

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Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

Mrs. Homegrown

August 12, 2013

Animals, Cats, Composting, Gardening

29 Comments

...n down all the way through. I still wouldn’t put it as it is anywhere near food crops, even though it is two years old, just to be safe. To make it extra safe — and useful — I’ve been letting the worms have at it. I’m using it as part of the mix that forms the worm bedding, so cat poo will become worm poo and the garden will be delighted. That’s how I plan to dispose of all of it, bit by bit. If I didn’t have the worm bin, I’d call it done and spr...

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