Bees will love your Coyote Brush Hedge

...s about coyote brush is that it is sort of ho-hum in appearance but can be used to provide a background to the more showy native plants. I never even thought about how its small, sturdy, bright green, evergreen leaves make it a perfect hedge plant. So, the lesson here is that you can have a more formal/tidy/traditional garden, and still serve the pollinators– as long as you lay off the clippers for a couple of months in the summer and let the hedg...

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Is Ham Radio Useful?

...t immediately apparent. The cell phone system is a lot more robust than it used to be and you don’t need a licence to use a phone in an emergency. I got home from the contest around 9 pm and as I began to make dinner the windows started rattling and the house began to roll. It was an earthquake. The cats panicked and ran under the couch. Since Ham radio was on my mind I instinctively grabbed my handheld radio and immediately heard the voices of ot...

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Josey Baker Bread: One Bread Book to Rule Them All

...just one book: Josey Baker Bread. The appropriately named Josey Baker (who used to work with another baker named Dave Miller–who mills his own flour, naturally) has written a perfect bread baking course in book form. Everything I’ve figured out about teaching how to bake is in here–start with a simple white bread, graduate to sourdough and then start baking with whole grain. Having trouble shaping a loaf? Bake in a loaf pan instead! Stretch and fo...

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Self-Righteousness Fail: We Bought a Car

...nation of our innate cheapness, our environmental guilt, and our hatred of used car lots would conspire to prevent any forward momentum. In that light, our friend’s offer was like a gift from the sky. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy about a car. Erik was a teeny bit mopey there for a while after we got it–sore from falling off his high horse, I suspect–whereas I was like a thrilled contestant on The Price is Right, jumping around a...

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Direct Seeding vs. Transplants

How I used to plant my veggies. An 8 inch spacing guide and some seedlings back in 2009. To direct sow or transplant, that is the question. I’m as indecisive as Hamlet when it comes to this question. Some caveats here: we live in a warm climate where you can direct sow almost anything unless you want to get an early start on tomatoes and peppers. And we don’t have to start seedlings indoors. Another thing to note–I fell under the spell of John Je...

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