Innholdsfortegnelse for February/March 2024 i MOTHER EARTH NEWS

I ’ve gardened for 35 years. But several of those years included adolescence, with a considerable gap when I was a single mom working two jobs living in apartments. When I rented a house and returned to growing food, I bought plants. When the cashier rang up the total, my husband asked, “How is this saving us money?” At $5 to $6 per plant, I spent several hundred dollars for a small garden. By then, my mother had died, so I had nobody to laugh and say, “That’s why I always started seeds to feed five kids.” So, I took the education into my own hands and learned lessons the hard way. Each year, I memorized frost dates and my garden’s microclimates. I learned which varieties grew best in the…

The first year I tried gardening in Sugar Land, Texas, in the Houston suburbs, I harvested a grand total of four tomatoes. The fifth and final year I gardened at that house, I had so many tomatoes I had to buy a canner. In the interim, I learned that Southern gardens can be wonderfully productive, but it takes some planning. Heat and humidity dominate every aspect of gardening in the South. High levels of rainfall can lead to fungal problems and acidic soils. Summers are hot enough to prevent many popular garden plants from setting fruit. The high heat and humidity together are ideal for all kinds of insect pests. Fortunately, there are ways to cope with all of these issues that don’t involve chemical sprays. When planning your garden,…

Welcome to our series answering reader questions and concerns about how to cut the utility company cord. Hoss Boyd is founder, president, and CEO of TeraVolt Energy and a recognized solar and energy-storage expert. Learn more about TeraVolt Energy at http://TVNRG.com. Someone told me I need to replace my 20-year-old solar panels because they’re no longer efficient. Is this true? Gary T. Like my Grandpa used to say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Every solar panel has its own production profile depending on the type of solar panel you have (monocrystalline, aka “mono”; polycrystalline, aka “poly”; and thin-film are three main forms). Locate your specific solar panel on the manufacturer’s website under “product support,” and download the warranty provisions if they’re still available. Then, find the clause for…

Purple and orange carrots have slight nutritional differences: Purple carrots contain additional anthocyanins, which are anti-inflammatory antioxidants responsible for the blue, purple, and red hues of fruits and vegetables. Orange carrots instead take their color from beta carotene, a different anti-oxidant that’s converted to vitamin A in the body. All carrots, no matter their color, are a good source of fiber, potassium, manganese, and vitamins. While you can use purple carrots in the same recipes in which you’d use orange carrots, you’ll have to make some adjustments. Purple carrots tend to have a more peppery taste and sometimes don’t taste as sweet as orange varieties. If you’re making a sweet baked good, you may have to adjust the sugar to compensate. The texture of a purple carrot can also be…

“While some complain about small harvests, we feed ourselves and others in our food desert.” EDITORS’ PICK Rainwater and Hot Climates I want to add to the letter on collecting rainwater (Dear MOTHER Dec. 2023/Jan. 2024). Before collecting rainwater, know the state and local laws about water rights. Nevada had a law until about four years ago that made it illegal to collect rainwater. No interference with rain from the sky to the ground was allowed. That law was modified to allow people to collect rainwater if they purchased a permit from the state. As a desert state, Nevada has strict limits on water use. Also, being on a residential well for water comes with restrictions on how much well water I can use, with only a specific acre-foot of…

Bringing home baby chicks for the first time is both exciting and terrifying. While most new chicken owners focus their energy on creating the perfect coop, there are other details to consider and decisions to make before the little bundles arrive. Delivery Day Many budding chicken enthusiasts purchase chicks at local farms or feed supply stores. If you ordered chicks from a hatchery, you’ll need to know the ship and delivery dates so you can be available to pick them up from your local post office. Most large poultry hatcheries ship new chicks in ventilated cardboard boxes with hot gel packs to keep chicks warm. A chick can live off its yolk sack for 48 hours after hatching, and hatcheries ship out chicks so they arrive in this window. Brooding…

My excuse to travel to India in 1982 was that I was studying Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I was also studying Indian culture, so different from American culture. One of the street foods I enjoyed most in India was chai. The drink mixture varied from vendor to vendor and could be as simple as tea with pepper and ginger, or as complicated as tea with five or six spices. Indian chai was usually made with buffalo milk, which is creamier than cow milk. When I got home to North America, I was unable to find chai. Years passed before it was available in cosmopolitan coffeehouses. Although it’s ubiquitous today, American chai isn’t authentic. It’s often made with a syrup and is tremendously sweet compared with real Indian…

To get rid of fungus gnats, you’ll need to consider their life span, which includes eggs, four stages of larvae, pupa, and adult. Depending on the species, adults can lay up to 200 eggs. They lay eggs where fungus is growing, which usually corresponds with damp soils. The larvae feed for around two weeks, and they feed on organic matter and roots and can damage plants. When temperatures are low, this stage can last longer. They pupate near the soil surface for 3 to 7 days. Adults live a little over a week. Both larvae and adults can spread plant pathogens, such as black root rot, Botrytis blight, Fusarium wilt, Pythium blight, and Verticillium wilt. Here are some methods for addressing fungus gnats. Dry Soil Treatment Lauren Fordyce, an Urban…

The Green Burial Council distinguishes a “green” burial with four criteria: “caring for the dead with the minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources, reduction of carbon emissions, protection of worker health, and restoration or preservation of habitat.” As of December 2023, the New Hampshire Funeral Resources, Education & Advocacy lists 443 cemeteries and burial grounds in the U.S. and Canada that have been reported to offer some form of natural burial. Adjacent to these green burial options is a process that’s risen in popularity in recent years by promising a more affordable and climate-friendly death-care option called “human composting,” “body composting,” “natural organic reduction” (NOR), “soil transformation,” or “terramation.” These are all names for an accelerated method of decomposing human remains. When a body is…

Starting seeds at home enables gardeners to cultivate strong plants that are ready for the ground come springtime, while also bringing the joy of gardening indoors during the more dormant time of year. Luckily, you don’t need to spend much money on seed-starting kits and supplies. With just a few containers, homemade seed-starting mix, and some paper, you can grow excellent transplants for your garden. Start the Seeds Begin growing your seedlings in a controlled environment using a sterile medium. You can do this in a variety of ways. Peat pellets—compressed, dried circles of peat—have been prevalent in the gardening market for a while. Though inexpensive and simple to use, they also pose environmental issues. If you want an alternative kind of pellet, consider ones made from coconut coir. To…

Chickens are a fantastic way to repurpose food scraps, but if eggs aren’t in your diet or you’ve got scraps chickens don’t care for (I’m talking about you, citrus rinds and pepper seeds), composting is a wonderful way to go “table-to-farm,” as we say in my house. A pile on the ground is a simple system. If you can’t put a pile just outside your kitchen or you have limited space, buying a tumbler-style composter may be tempting. These make the turning a cinch, but because the compost isn’t in contact with the ground, it doesn’t benefit from the Earth’s heat. The compost itself will generate heat, but when the weather is too cold for the bacteria to work and your compost pile is only tumbler-sized, you’ll get frozen zuchini…

Seed tape is a long strip of paper with prespaced seeds glued inside. When planted, the paper biodegrades and the seeds sprout, creating a neat row of ideally spaced plants. Making your own seed tape is a great way to save time—and seeds. You can sow more rows in less time, and the process leads to neat rows that’ll require less thinning. Plus, you can prepare large quantities beforehand. In addition to seeds, you’ll need scissors, measuring tape, a pencil, a paintbrush, white flour or starch, and toilet paper. 1 In a small bowl, mix white flour or starch with water to create a paste with the consistency of school glue. You won’t need much, so start by adding a tablespoon of each until you reach the right thickness. 2…