Tippy Tap, Beta Version

...I gave the bottle a quick coat of paint because I couldn’t scrape off the label and couldn’t stand to wash my hands while that psychotic, chemical peddling teddy bear stared up at me. The mechanics of building a tippy tap are quite simple, but fairly situational, so you’ll have to improvise around the shape of the water bottle you choose, and decide on a hanging method which fits your needs. Some basics: You need support The bottle has to hang fr...

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More on our gardening disasters

...to put the heart back into our garden. (Our Heart of Flax from way back in 2011) I thought I’d chime in on the subject of this year’s garden failures. Before I do, I’d like to thank you all for your kind advice and commiseration that you left on Erik’s post. First, I will agree that it really, truly has been a terrible year in the garden. Sometimes Erik gets a little melodramatic when it comes to the crop failure (e.g. the Squash Baby adventure)...

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What Will Be the New Kale?

Our 2011 crop of spigarello. Since 2011, we’ve been saying that Spigarello is the new kale. Thanks to a tip from the folks at Winnetka Farms, we may need to wait for BroccoLeaf™ to have its fifteen minutes of fame as the new kale. The Salinas, California based Foxy Organic is, quite sensibly, marketing broccoli leaves. Broccoli leaves are indeed edible and tasty. Foxy has the recursive media to prove it, a Facebook photo of someone Instagramming...

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Non-Toxic Cleaning for the Home

...n their travel paths with vinegar or rubbing alcohol to erase their scent, making it hard for them to find their way back in. Block their points of entrance with strong smelling and powdery substances. Start with non-toxic stuff and work your way up to boric acid if you have to. Many people find lines of cinnamon very effective. Other have used lines of baby powder or even lavender buds. If your fruit bowl went bad and now you are plagued by fruit...

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Make Your Own Chalkboard Paint II

...e Root Simple compound was making our own chalkboard paint and using it to label all of the cabinets in our garage workshop. In the past month, inspired by a visit from über-maker Federico Tobon, I’ve taken up the task of pimping out the workshop with a proper workbench and table saw. I’ll blog about Workshop 2.0 when I’m finished with the renovation, but the chalkboard paint hack is worth a repeat mention. Thanks to the chalkboard paint, when I w...

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