Steve Solomon’s Soil and Health e-Library

...e books for free, but Solomon requests a modest $13 donation. You can find this amazing resource at: www.soilandhealth.org. The “Radical Agriculture” part of the archive contains many early organic ag classics by authors such as Sir Albert Howard, J.I. Rodale and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. The “Homesteading” part of the library contains tomes dating from the 1700s (William Ellis’ The Country Housewife’s Family Companion), all the way to the appropriate...

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Plastic or Wood?

...these are the new rules. We are going to phase as many plastics out of the homestead as we can. We won’t toss what we have in the landfill right now, but when it is time to replace it, this is how it’s going down: Wood and metal utensils instead of plastic Glass storage containers instead of Tupperwear Wool blankets instead of Polarfleece blankets Down filling instead of polyester filling (even for allergy sufferers)* Silk and wool fabrics for ath...

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Artificial Turf: Is It Ever a Good Idea?

...rebate for residents and businesses who remove their lawn in favor of less water hungry plantings. Those dollars add up if you’ve got even a modest sized backyard. But the devil is always in the details. While the LADWP has some very good information on lawn alternatives as well as training classes on water wise landscaping, why did they have to include “non-vegetative groundcover” a.k.a. artificial turf in the rebate program? And why did they lan...

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