Innholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2018 i MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Many people know that modern agriculture relies on massive amounts of pesticides to produce substantial results, but few realize how far-reaching pesticides’ impacts can be. Now, a new study is revealing that these compounds are more present in our bodies than we think. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in many herbicides, is known for triggering environmental damage and adverse health effects at excessive concentrations. In fact, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have revealed that the chemical is showing up in human bodies. While it’s convenient to think the contaminant is confined only to the corn and soy fields it’s sprayed on, tests of everyday foods, such as cookies, ice cream, and crackers, are all showing traces of the chemical. Human exposure to glyphosate has increased…

In 2016, I moved to California to build a “palletable cobin” — a cabin made from heat-treated pallets, insulated with straw, and covered with cob. I wanted a durable, well-insulated tiny house that didn’t require too much time or money to build and could be made out of recycled materials and local resources. I planned to build a 120-square-foot hut, which wouldn’t require a building permit. So, as soon as the weather cleared in May, I set aside loose topsoil, brought in a few cubic yards of base rock, and tamped it all down firmly. I had a collection of used cement pier blocks that I set in a 12-footdiameter circle about 40 inches apart from each other — the same width of the pallets I had available. I used…

The Layens hive is the original horizontal hive with extra-deep frames, invented in the 19th century by Georges de Layens. More than 1 million hives of this model are in use today, and it’s the hive that I (and my bees) prefer. This style of hive is ideal for successful overwintering and rapid spring colony buildup, even in cold climates. This model features 1½-inch walls, which will protect your bees from summer heat and winter cold. This version accepts 14 Layens frames (which are equivalent to 18 Langstroth deep frames) and holds up to 45 pounds of surplus honey. If you live in an area with a more abundant honey flow, simply make the box longer by 1 9/16 inches for each additional frame you desire. Depending on the area…

“When people ask if I garden, they mean broccoli or roses,” says Martha Rabinowitz, owner of Sister Sanctuary, a farm in Guilford, Vermont. But Rabinowitz isn’t that kind of gardener. While half of her land produces organically grown hay that feeds the cows in a neighbor’s dairy operation, her passion lies in the plants she cultivates on 40 acres of her property’s forestland. This is the Sister Sanctuary, and it houses a congregation of endangered and rare woodland medicinals, such as black cohosh, bloodroot, trillium, and ramps. It’s a place where she puts “rescued” plants — those she’s dug up from a construction site or roadside and then replanted in the sanctuary. Letting the public know about her garden work can be challenging, so Rabinowitz decided to apply to make…

After moving to an area where microbreweries pop out of the ground like mushrooms in wet weather, our European family couldn’t help but encounter the uniquely American experience of homemade root beer. Although we already enjoyed the bounties of our homestead in the forms of fresh goat’s milk, pressed cider, and a wonderful tea garden, our kid’s favorite beverage is now root beer. So, when Simon needed to pick an item for show and tell, of course he asked to learn how to make root beer from scratch. And in the end, I figured that a little botanical scavenger hunt and some basic brewing skills could do the kid a world of good. Today, we know root beer as a sugary soda, but it wasn’t always that way. Botanical infusions…

We’ve all done it — thought we could really use a few more basil plants here and there, knowing that the resulting herb adds flavor to tomato sauce, pesto, and pizza. But soon, we become Johnny Pestosauce, pushing our extra pesto into the arms of friends and family until they finally run from us when they see us approaching with frozen green cubes. So, here’s an alternative for using your wealth of basil that will have your neighbors begging for more. This recipe is modified from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. The original recipe uses white wine vinegar with apple juice or white wine. I used only water, because I wanted to highlight the basil’s flavor. I reduced the amount of sugar for the same reason. Basil jelly…

If you can help your city achieve a progressive bike policy, it will offer a number of benefits to your personal, environmental, and community health. However, navigating your local government’s willingness to improve bike infrastructure can be challenging. Here, I’ve collected three community-organizing strategies to ensure your politicians are serving the best interests of you and your community. Connect with or start local bicyclist leagues. In addition to providing strength in numbers, cycling organizations, such as the League of American Bicyclists, often offer toolkits for local activists, and may provide funding and a body of research to help you persuade local politicians. Local leagues may offer even more targeted assistance, including help with interpreting local laws. The League of Michigan Bicyclists, for instance, offers an easily generalizable advocacy toolkit at…

SHOW US! Share your unique perspective with our community by submitting photos of inviting gardens, nutritious foods, wild animals, and more to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Photo Group on Flickr (www.Flickr.com/Groups/MotherEarthNewsPhotos/Pool). We’ll feature our favorites here and online!…

Rocky Start for Colorado Transplants I absolutely love MOTHER EARTH NEWS, and I’ve been reading it since the ’70s, after discovering it in college. I lived in Pennsylvania for 63 years before moving to Colorado less than two years ago. In Pennsylvania, gardening was so easy; I could grow stuff just by breathing on it! In 2013, my 13 tomato plants produced a few thousand tomatoes. However, living in the Colorado foothills is quite different. In the time we’ve been here, I haven’t grown a thing. Our soil is shallow, dry, and not exactly nutrient-dense. There are boulders under everything. I would love an issue devoted to mountain gardening. I’m sure others living in the Rockies would also appreciate it. Perhaps there are some longtimers who might share their tips…

A pilot program from the Georgia Department of Transportation is striving to change the notion that farming and freeways don’t have much in common. Working in partnership with The Land Institute and The Ray, the department has developed a perennial wheat farm along a highway’s right-of-way. The project is taking place along the Ray C. Anderson Memorial Highway, an 18-mile stretch of land locally known as “The Ray” that’s already on the cutting edge of sustainable transportation. Along its route are solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations, a pollinator garden, and rainwater-capturing bioswales. However, the perennial wheat project takes this highway sustainability program to a new level. Perennial grains are increasingly viewed as a viable avenue for improving the environmental impacts of modern agriculture, and positive results from the pilot program…

Multifunctional Dehydrator $319.95 at www.ExcaliburDehydrator.com One of the great joys of the growing season is harvesting your garden’s bounty. So when you have tomatoes up to your ears, more rosemary than you know what to do with, and a fruit tree bending under the weight of its crop, having a dehydrator that can handle that bounty is a real boon. And when it comes to dehydrators, the Excalibur 9-tray unit is the cream of the crop. The boxy 9-tray models are tried-and-true, and they’re made in the United States. Editor Russell Mullin can attest to their time-tested design: “I inherited a 15-year-old unit that’s still going strong.” And while the design hasn’t changed much over the years (when it works, it works), some available upgrades have made the new units…

This is a recipe I make every weekend, so that during the week I can rush in from the farm, kick off my boots, and have a wholly delicious and nutritious sandwich meat in a flash, accompanied by some good cheese, a crusty bread, fresh greens, and mustard. Yield: one 4-pound loaf. Directions: Grind 1 pound of the pork lean trim and all the fat, plus the liver or heart, garlic, onion, and parsley, through the coarse plate of the meat grinder, then through the fine plate. Set aside. Grind the rest of the pork lean trim and the hazelnuts through the coarse plate. Add to the meat and fat mix. Chill it in the refrigerator. Combine the egg, crème fraîche, brandy or port, and orange zest to make a…

You’ll find that some greywater sources are easier to access than others. If you’re building a new home, you’ll have much more flexibility as to which sources you tap into — and where. Diverting greywater from drainpipes often requires installing a diverter valve (called a “3-way valve”) that enables you to switch the water flow between the drain line (leading to the sewer or septic system) and the greywater system. Diverter valves can be operated manually or remotely, via an electrical switch. Let’s look at the primary potential sources for greywater in a home. Washing machines. I’ve worked on hundreds of laundry greywater systems, and washing machines are consistently the easiest source of greywater to access. The machine’s internal pump pushes greywater out through the machine’s drain hose; from there,…

To discover these hidden forests, hundreds of students and scientists from around the world spent thousands of hours inspecting more than 200,000 images to count every visible tree and shrub. The research was warranted, because previous tree counts have proved inaccurate. Most relied on low-resolution satellite images that made it difficult to distinguish between trees, rocks, shadows, and even dirt patches, leading to an undercounting of overall trees. Thanks to newly available ultra-high-resolution photos from Google Earth in which each pixel represents a meter or less, this study has accurately identified far more trees than before. These hidden forests are no small find. In fact, they collectively cover an area almost the size of a second Amazon rainforest and represent a 9 percent increase in estimated global forest coverage. Most…

How many people dream of having a few bustling beehives in their backyard? But here’s a typical scenario: You go to a beekeeping class for beginners and do everything the instructors suggest. You buy equipment and protective gear, order packages of bees, install them in the hives, feed them sugar, and treat them against parasites and disease. Then, they don’t survive the first winter. You buy more bees the following spring, and the cycle repeats itself. Faced with high bee mortality, mounting costs, and modest returns, even expert beekeepers sometimes hang up their veils. There are half as many bee colonies in the United States today as there were in the 1940s, and the majority of those that remain are treated with chemicals and trucked around the country to pollinate…

When I moved to central Virginia 25 years ago, my gardening neighbors believed that lettuce couldn’t be grown in winter. I set out to prove that we could indeed produce a continuous supply of salad greens year-round. I garden at Twin Oaks Community, where we plant 120 lettuces each week — enough to feed 100 people. By late September, we’ve made our 46th sowing of the year. Although we cultivate much more than you’ll likely need to grow yourself, you can still apply our planting strategy to enjoy fresh, homegrown lettuce throughout winter on a smaller scale. A simple way to extend your harvest is to sow several different lettuce cultivars on the same day, each day you plant. You should plant cultivars with various numbers of days to maturity,…

Wind power in the form of windmills has been around for a long time. Relatively short towers once hosted large rotors with many blades to produce the power and torque needed for tasks such as grinding grains and running machinery. During the 1930s, wind-electric generators made their way into rural areas lacking electric power lines. These low-voltage machines were primarily used to charge batteries that powered low-voltage direct current (DC) home appliances. Some were dedicated to pumping water. Today, a handful of manufacturers produce wind-electric turbines for both grid-tied systems and off-grid battery-charging applications. “Turbine” generally refers to the combination of blade set and generator assembly, while “generator” refers specifically to the electricity-producing unit. Modern wind machines use high-efficiency generators or alternators and highly refined blade designs and materials for…

With all the time and money you’ve put into having a food pantry, you’ll want to make every effort to protect it. Nothing is more disappointing than seeing your food investment ruined by natural elements or bugs. Knowing what your food’s worst enemies are, understanding how they can infiltrate and ruin your food, and then taking steps to prevent their havoc will help you preserve your food investment for the long term. Everything from sunlight and moisture to bugs and bacteria can damage your food. If you’re planning to store long-term foodstuffs, such as rice, beans, dry milk, or sugar, you’ll want to consider repackaging those items. Companies package most of the dry goods we purchase for short-term use, meaning those goods likely won’t hold up during long-term storage. The…

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