Why I’m Growing Vegetables in a Straw Bale

...eds, pots, self-watering containers, straw bales and just plain old by-the-book science-based, extension service advice. Results have ranged from moderately successful to moderately tragic–mostly moderately tragic. Over the years, our vegetable garden has shrunk from ambitious proportions to a tiny 3-foot by 8-foot raised bed filled with tired and expensive potting soil. This past winter (our best season for veggies here in Southern California) I...

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Deep Work

...wport, could be just the person to lead us out of our distraction with his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The book can be boiled down to this: thou shalt schedule uninterrupted blocks of time to focus on single, important tasks. And, yes, that includes thinking about how we spend our leisure time too. If you allow incoming texts and notifications to define your day you’ll turn into a human router, pushing around f...

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Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

The directions for seed saving in our last book, Making It, almost got cut. Perhaps we should have just changed those directions to “Why it’s OK to buy seeds.” The fact is that it’s not easy to save the seeds of many vegetables thanks to the hard work of our bee friends. That being said, Shannon Carmody of Seed Saver’s Exchange gave a lecture at this year’s Heirloom Exposition with some tips for ambitious gardeners who want to take up seed saving...

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Saturday Tweets: Parsley Poodle Sandwich

...https://t.co/AQdn2mRYWB — Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) July 9, 2019 A new book I contributed to is out today! It’s an update to the 2006 book Vegetarian Sports Nutrition- which if you know me you know I recommended it often. Honored to have worked on this updated version. It’s PACKED with all the info you need.https://t.co/ow1PV9zdKv pic.twitter.com/XU5xwKrRUs — Matt Ruscigno (@MattRuscigno) July 12, 2019 The Pentel Graphgear 1000 Mechanical Penc...

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Use Your Microwave as Dough Proofing Box

...bread baking after a pause, specifically making whole wheat breads. If you’d like to try baking yourself, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I highly recommend the Josey Baker Bread book. Why? It’s to the point, beginner friendly, has a lot of whole grain recipes, and is the book most likely to help you develop a regular bread baking habit....

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