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Modern Homesteading – Don’t miss the next big trend
I guess it’s the hobbyist thing. If you are growing outdoors, particularly here, you start in the spring and you are ending – by now. With indoor growing you can grow whatever you want whenever you want 365 days of the year. That’s what modern homesteading is about.

The Solution (to most of your problems) is in the Soil
Our world is just too small to be messing with random additions of chemicals and in his book, the intelligent gardener, Steve Solomon spells it out for you. But if you prefer to keep it really really safe, simply make the conditions right for microbes and they will make the conditions right for plants. It is a simple and satisfactory solution.

Pick your own Christmas Decorations – Michelena tells us how
I just think that nature is so beautiful on its own and incorporating that into your décor or celebrating the season in a more natural way with the rythyms of nature and the cycles that she brings and the different plants that we appreciate at different times of year is really important to me.

The Biochar Revolution and other fun in the Greenhouse
But back to Biochar. Apparently if made and used properly it is a more or less a permanent solution to soil drainage problems, soil fertility, soil chemical problems and almost anything that ails you.

BIG VEGETABLES – HOW DO THEY DO IT?
Maybe you grow seven hundred pound pumpkins? Or maybe you are the gardener reported on by the BBC this week who raised a record breaking 50 pound cabbage in England. So my question is this: why bother? I want to grow mineralized,organic, pest-free food. But does it really need to be giant?

Do You Need To Clean and Sharpen Your Garden Shears?
I line up the tools and take them apart to clean them. Yes- you can also sharpen the blades leaving them on the handle and if you have a cheaper pair they might not come apart. But I don’t believe in half measures. I loosen the main bolt on my 35-year-old Swiss Felco’s. Into soapy water they go.