Lead in Backyard Eggs: Don’t Freak Out But Don’t Ignore the Issue

...elevated lead levels in our soil when we did a series of soil tests back in 2011. Thankfully our egg results came in at 1.02 ug, just under the average level in the study. You’d have to eat a lot of eggs as an adult to go beyond the Federal Drug Administration’s maximum recommended lead intake level, though you could bump up against it if a child ate more than three eggs a day. I’d suggest that if you live in an older urban location, next to a gas...

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A Purple Dragon Carrot

...ets. John clearly has more important things to do than updating a Facebook page. My dragon carrots grew without a hitch in our “guerrilla” parkway garden. As you can see from the photo, the carrot has a deep purple color reminiscent of the domesticated carrot’s wild ancestors, which were probably tamed in what is now Afghanistan. Wikipedia identifies the purple hue of these carrots as anthocyanin a possible source of antioxidants and a common pigm...

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Perennial Vegetables

...t in edible perennials and the power of the internet has brought many of these species into our backyards. See the Mother Earth News Seed Search Engine on the right side of this page to hunt down some of the more rare items. Now, time to fertilize those goji berries and ponder the controversial air potato....

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Nomadic Furniture

...shelves, lamps made from milk jugs, hexagonal dining sets as well as a two page hymn to the waterbed (ok, not sure about that thoughtstyling). The subtitle of the book sums it up, “how to build and where to buy lightweight furniture that folds, inflates, knocks down, stacks, or is disposable and can be recycled.” You can see more of their work thanks to a recent retrospective of their work in Vienna. My favorite project in the book is the series o...

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Saturday Tweets: RIP Mary Oliver

...95hZnogbU pic.twitter.com/tjqkAqvjvA — The Millions (@The_Millions) January 16, 2019 Southern California // Big Crops, Big Money. Rare front page of the Los Angeles Times Annual Midwinter, from January 1915@KCET @JDevis @ginapollack @LAFarmGirl @RachelSurls #LAFoodways pic.twitter.com/Q3EyWeUWJo — ADSAUSAGE (@adsausage) January 17, 2019 Russian company wants to put giant ads in low-Earth orbit; they could display corporate logos “and other brand e...

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