If I offered you a slice of this Health Kick tomato at a farmstand in Michigan today, I would bebreaking the law

At a farm marketing meeting in Michigan two years ago, a participant talked movingly about how his mother supported the family during the Depression by selling homemade pies to area restaurants. “If it […]

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The first challenge in preparing for a fall and winter harvest is to get your seeds to germinate if temperatures get too high. Johnny’s Selected Seeds has launched a newsletter that offers information on the germination temps required for a variety of different root crops and greens. For some crops, starting indoors is safest. Others […]

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The British organization called the Carbon Trust came up with the idea that labels should tell us how much carbon it took to produce the product. What a great way to empower consumers. Armed with such information, we could start to make informed choices, avoiding products that spew too much CO2 into the atmosphere.
However, a […]

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Milk jugs nestled among the tomato plants

SUNDAY, MAY 17 UPDATE: Everything in the hoophouse came through last night in great shape. But, then again, so did the warm-weather cucumbers and melons planted outside, with no protection. So I am still not sure how well the milk jugs worked as protection against frost. But I can […]

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I promised to keep you apprised of my progress in using empty eggshells as pots to start my seeds indoors. The photo on the right shows you that my mesclun (salad mix) is thriving.
Again, the beauty of using these eggshells is that: (1) they are free, (2) they add calcium to the soil, and (3) […]

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The seeds planted in the eggshells are on a
warming pad in my basement (brrrr).
The traditional trays upstairs do not need
any supplemental heat.

One of my favorite magazines, Backhome, recently ran a cover story about using eggshells to sprout seeds. Their beautifully lit picture shows perfect seedlings emerging from neatly topped brown eggshells. Needless to say, my […]

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Research on tiny things sometimes illuminates big themes. Michigan State University biologist John J. Smith was studying a fruit fly that was evolving from laying its eggs on hawthorn trees to using apple trees. What he learned was that a parasitic wasp that traditionally feeds on the fruit flies’ larvae was evolving in tandem […]

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Mack Dreyfuss writes admiringly about alpacas for the Sustainable Farmer website. Mack visited Geoff Rostan’s Timber Ridge Farm, where these noble animals have now joined their spitting-but-not-kissing cousins the llamas as livestock recognized by USDA. This official status allows the farmers who raise them to acquire insurance that helps make their investment secure.
I must admit, […]

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As part of my never-ending quest to become more self-sufficient and reduce my carbon footprint, I purchased an SOS Sport Solar Oven from the Solar Oven Society in Minnesota. Though there was a glitch that delayed the shipment, the kind folks at the society made it right and threw in a set of reflectors that […]

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