The Call to Create: Marguerite Knutzen 1925-2017

April 18, 2017

...loving, kind and patient mom. To her I owe my life’s calling: the joys of making, doing and teaching. My mom taught junior high art, crafts and ceramics before I was born. She took a break to raise me and then went back to teaching as an elementary school aide. Teaching at the junior high level is no easy task. Schools dump students with academic and home problems into the arts classes just to keep them busy. My mom’s call to be a teacher wasn’t...

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Saturday Tweets: It’s 2017!

Mr. Homegrown

January 7, 2017

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

...y @bramble36 https://t.co/bWFTOcHVk5 pic.twitter.com/cTOIyap8tz — Guardian gardening (@guardiangardens) January 6, 2017 $100 for a tablet and foldable wireless keyboard https://t.co/9sKiq88hv3 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) January 6, 2017 Love this project! 100% increase in both landscape #biodiversity and residential population #density can be achieved https://t.co/PJwlCZFBTy pic.twitter.com/KE9NWqLqWN — Thomas Rainer (@ThomasRainerDC) January 5, 2...

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Does Compost Tea Work?

Mr. Homegrown

November 16, 2015

Composting, Gardening

5 Comments

...D3Kx7I4d4hU If you’d like to pick an argument in the mostly staid world of gardening, I can’t think of a better subject than compost tea. I’ve, somewhat cowardly, tried to stay out of the fray and leave the debate to Linda Chalker-Scott and Jeff Lowenfels. If you forced me to pick a side I’d lean towards Chalker-Scott’s skepticism. Thankfully, I can now point towards the eXtension.org webinar on making and using compost teas that I’ve embedded abo...

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Heirloom Expo in Photos

Mr. Homegrown

September 14, 2015

Food, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

6 Comments

I highly recommend making the trip next year to Santa Rosa to see the National Heirloom Exposition put on by the folks at Baker Creek Seeds. The centerpiece of the expo is the massive display of hundreds of different varieties of squash, melons, tomatoes and other edibles. It’s inspiring and frustrating all at once since, unless you have your own garden, you’ll never see such diversity at the supermarket. I came back with the will to improve our...

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Tools for Conquering Internet Addiction

Mr. Homegrown

May 22, 2015

Thoughtstylings

15 Comments

...oticed that I’m having a harder time initiating and completing the sort of gardening, cooking, food preservation and general DIY projects that provide fodder for this blog and for our books. I think it’s time for some drastic action. It’s time to limit certain highly additive and often counter-productive Internet activities such as email, social media and general surfing not related to my core mission. Two tools I’m evaluating are LeechBlock, whic...

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