MOTHER EARTH NEWS December 2013 -January 2014

Expert Advice, Exclusive Extras and an Engaged Community Smarter Home Heating Concerned about how high heating costs could climb this winter? No need to shiver in your boots (or indoor footwear of choice): You can take steps right now that will slash the amount of cash you’ll spend to stay warm in your home. MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been reporting on viable strategies and projects for saving money on home-heating costs for more than 40 years, and we’ve assembled our best articles in our online Guide to Home Heating. This collection provides all of the how-to for repairs, retrofits and quick adjustments that will instantly improve your abode’s energy efficiency, plus do-it-yourself projects ranging from stitching some homemade thermal shades to incorporating elements of passive solar home design. You’ll learn…

MOTHER Knows (Gardening) Best Are you excited to start planning your vegetable garden for next year? If you’ve been reading Mother Earth News for a while, you know that we’ve developed some exceptional resources to help you grow more of your own food. Here’s a roundup of our key gardening content and digital tools to help you brush up on the basics and discover new ideas. Crop at a Glance series. Get clear, concise advice on how to grow 51 crops, from classics such as tomatoes to staples such as grains. These guides include cooking suggestions, harvesting tips and organic pest-control advice, in addition to planting and growing basics. We’ve featured a different crop in almost every issue for the past six years, and now you can find all of…

A Foster Hen for 50 Chicks I had just ordered 50 Araucana chicks when I read the letter “Adoptive Mother Hens for Day-Old Chicks” in the June/July 2013 issue. Friends of ours mentioned they had a hen that was “setting,” so I asked them to try the method mentioned in the letter — lifting a broody hen off her nest at night and replacing her eggs with chicks so they can be raised naturally by a mother. They took eight of my chicks to give it a go. The next day our friends were back and raving about how well it had worked. They said they would like to bring the hen, Barbara, over that night to see whether she would take all 50. When she arrived, she accepted all…

Each year, the world’s taxpayers fork over at least $700 billion in subsidies that support environmentally destructive activities, such as burning fossil fuels, overpumping aquifers, clear-cutting forests and overfishing. As the Earth Council report “Subsidizing Unsustainable Development” pointed out, “There’s something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.” One way to correct this imbalance is by tax shifting: raising taxes in certain situations so the price to carry out environmentally destructive activities begins to reflect their true cost, and offsetting this with an overall reduction in income taxes. Another way to achieve this goal is to shift government subsidies away from unsustainable practices. On the climate front, scores of countries could cut carbon emissions by eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. We can…

If you think you’ve had cinnamon before, there’s a good chance you’re mistaken. Says author Ian Hemphill in The Spice and Herb Bible, you’ve probably actually tasted cassia. Cassia is cheaper than cinnamon and the United States allows both products to appear on labels as “cinnamon.” True Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), sometimes called “Sri Lankan cinnamon,” is the inner layer of bark of a tropical evergreen tree related to bay laurel. The cassia tree, its relative, produces bark similar to cinnamon. Several varieties are harvested for consumption, and you’ll find a host of names for all of these types of cassia. C. burmannii is often labeled “Korintje,” “Padang” or “Indonesian cassia”; C. loureiroi is labeled “Saigon cinnamon,” “Vietnamese cassia” or “Vietnamese cinnamon”; and C. cassia is labeled “Chinese cinnamon.” Telling…

Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are productive, delicious and supernutritious. Few crops keep as well as these flavorful tubers, which can be stored for months in a cool, dry place. This crop is a staple in climates with hot, muggy summers, but growing sweet potatoes is also possible in cooler climates if you adjust to meet the plants’ requirement for warm temperatures. Types to Try Sweet potato varieties differ in skin and flesh color and texture, as well as in leaf shape and vine length. The flavor and nutritional qualities of sweet potatoes vary with flesh color: Orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are rich sources of fiber and vitamins A and C. White-fleshed varieties contain less vitamin A, but are a good source of minerals and B vitamins. Purple sweet potatoes contain a…