Hops in Southern California

...g attached to the east side of the building. Homegrown Evolution’s own hop farming experiment ended in the spring of last year after we accidentally plopped some home built scaffolding on top of the tiny vine while undertaking the heinous task of scraping and painting the front of the house. Planting it in terrible soil doomed it to failure anyways. We’re experimenting with growing both Cascade and Nugget hops in a big self irrigating planter with...

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Stirred, Not Shaken

...ertilizers where catching on, Steiner proposed a radical return to organic farming. Biodynamic agriculture combines common sense practices such as composting with strange esoteric rituals. The oddest aspect of biodynamics involves the “preparations”, a specific set of substances made of manure, silica and herbs that are buried in cow horns, bladders and skulls. After a few months they are unearthed, ritually stirred and applied to soil and compost...

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Weekend Linkages: Summer Heat, Oaks and QAnon

...e via @aic_ancient. 100 British chairs When Old Oaks Fall Nabhan: Food and Farming Crisis Requires Both Science and Faith Is Geotagging on Instagram Ruining Natural Wonders? Some Say Yes California’s yoga, wellness and spirituality community has a QAnon problem Uber and Lyft Donated to Community Groups Who Then Pushed the Companies’Agenda California dodges worst of historic Pacific Northwest heatwave, but long-duration heatwave still likely inland...

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Baker Creek Invites and Un-invites Cliven Bundy to Speak

...had the budget to keep threatened protestors at a distance. It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed some haphazard curatorial decisions on a Baker Creek event roster. Speakers at their Santa Rosa Heirloom festival, in past years, included many well known experts in gardening and farming but also pseudoscientists such as “Food Babe” Vani Deva Hari and Joseph Mercola. This week’s Bundy kerfuffle leaves me scratching my head about Baker Creek’s ideolo...

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Saturday Tweets: Bike Rants, Super Monster Wolf and Marginalia

...enForkTV) March 4, 2018 BBC News – ‘Super Monster Wolf’ a success in Japan farming trials https://t.co/QjOF7Wkwj7 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 8, 2018 Why Manhattan Beach is forcing this beekeeper — and her hives — out of town https://t.co/dS8Amp7E6p — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 7, 2018 Of Mice and Men [Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights] pic.twitter.com/nFHhZhoqu3 — Damien Kempf (@DamienKempf) March 5, 2018 The Beast of the Ap...

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