Simple Tech

...offer advice to the locals but don’t bother to take any lessons back. Sometimes this arrangement goes bad when the technology developed by the “experts” breaks down when the parts can’t be sourced locally. There can also be a considerable amount of arrogance in asking poor folks living in places decimated by the legacy of colonialism, and our rapacious WTO/World Bank/global economy to “make do” while we in the first world bleed them dry for the r...

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Nuts!

...e nut trees into your landscaping. Why plant a useless ficus tree when you can plant something that will provide food? And come harvest time you wont need to mix in any racing fuel....

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How Not to Grow Potatoes

...wing in the summer heat for at least a month we still had a meager harvest. And speaking of heat, we suspect that potatoes may do better here in Southern California in the winter and we’re going to try it again soon–this time with seed potatoes. If any of you loyal readers have any ‘tater growing experiences please share them with us. And don’t worry, we haven’t read Benton’s book and won’t resort to the same cheap white trash humor....

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Homesteading Disasters: The Skunk Menace

...I’m hoping, in fact, to collect our misadventures into a little booklet of homesteading disasters. To that end, I’ll periodically write about the latest problem around the Root Simple Compound starting today with how fun it is to garden with skunks. Angry red arrows mark skunk dig sites in our new keyhole bed. I know that I’ve got a skunk problem. Yet each year when I sow lettuce seeds I get lazy about putting up the required bird net barrier over...

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