Does Compost Tea Work?

November 16, 2015

...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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The Call to Create: Marguerite Knutzen 1925-2017

Mr. Homegrown

April 18, 2017

Thoughtstylings

29 Comments

...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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A Sasquatch in the Garden?

Mr. Homegrown

November 6, 2020

Gardening

8 Comments

I keep a mental note of all the objects I’ve dug up while gardening over the years. The soil surrounding our house has mostly thrown up broken milk bottles from the days of the milkman. I’ve also found a lot of what I think are perfume bottles. Mostly though my shovel hits chunks of long buried concrete. Then I curse. But this week, while we’ve been working on version 5.3 of our difficult to garden steep front slope, I uncovered the strangest obj...

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A Year after The Age of Limits: 5 Responses to the End Times

Mrs. Homegrown

May 5, 2014

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

54 Comments

...is is it. The Crappening is not a time for valiant last stands. It’s about making due, being sensible and lending a hand to those in need. If the Crappening has a spirit animal, it would be a little burro with a heavy load on its back. The burro doesn’t think the world is ending because it has to carry a heavy load. It just keeps walking, because that is what you do. 5) There are no answers, only action. Clear thinking people can see trouble all a...

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I Can’t Get Adam Curtis Out of My Head

Mr. Homegrown

February 12, 2021

Thoughtstylings

1 Comment

...e that this entire multi-thousand post blog, with all those canning, bread making, gardening, squirrel complaining ramblings are just an excuse for those few times I get to implore readers to watch the latest Adam Curtis documentary? Methinks yes and so I must note that a new Curtis just dropped on the BBC yesterday. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” is Curtis at his most sprawling and complex. We watched the first episode last night which covers, am...

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