Downtown Homestead

The onset of autumn is bittersweet for many gardeners, as we say goodbye to our tender annuals and vegetables but welcome the respite from intense gardening chores. Note your successes and failures in your garden journal, and make plans for next year’s growing season.   Fall Gardening Chores   Clean Up Autumn Leaves Organic gardeners with deciduous trees face a mixed blessing in the fall. Dead leaves are an unparalleled source of carbon in the compost pile , and gardeners should keep a ratio of four parts carbon to one part nitrogen in the compost bin. However, gathering all this free fertilizer is laborious, and it’s tempting to neglect raking chores. Fallen leaves quickly mat together and form a suffocating blanket on the lawn. If you can’t see any green under the leaf mat, it’s time to rake. For gardeners with many trees, this may mean raking two or three times a week. If your compost bin is overflowing with leaves, run over the leaf pile with your lawnmower and use ...

Designing a residential wind or solar power system requires many engineering considerations. One of the biggest decisions is whether to design a grid-tied (GT) or off-the-grid (OTG) system. This decision is a prime motivator in design of the battery storage system. A professional can design and install an appropriate system for each unique situation. A typical GT system feeds excess electricity back into the power grid, running the consumer’s meter backwards. If the grid is available, it is also used to supply power to the home if necessary. OTG systems rely totally on themselves and backup generators to supply electricity needs. Either system may use batteries to store energy, but going OTG requires battery storage.   Sizing the Battery Bank There are several technical issues to be considered when sizing components for an alternative energy system. Within each of these areas, the desired balance of product quality and cost must be balanced for the battery bank. The first ste...

Educational theorists, from philosophers like Socrates and Rousseau to researchers like Howard Gardner today, have addressed theories of learning. Many of their ideas continue to influence homeschoolers as well as traditional educators. A little familiarity with some of the ideas most popular among homeschoolers will help you make sense of the wealth of available materials when you begin to make choices for your family. Overview of different learning theories By Unidentified (Ensian published by University of Michigan) – 1968 Michiganensian, p. 91, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30316389 Jean Piaget and Cognitive Development Jean Piaget proposed that children go through several distinct stages of cognitive growth. First comes the sensorimotor stage (birth to two years), during which the child learns primarily through sensation and movement. At the pre-operational stage (ages two to seven), children begin to master symbols such as language and s...

Just because the temperatures are falling and days are getting shorter doesn’t mean that you need to till under the garden and call it a season. Fall can be a delightful time to take up the hobby of vegetable gardening! While ‘hot weather’ plants such as tomatoes and peppers may be winding down for the year, there are numerous other vegetables capable of thriving in the cooler autumn months. If you are interested in maximizing the vegetable output of your garden, try out these great tips for vegetable gardening in autumn. Growing Great Crops in the Fall Salad greens, such as lettuce, arugula and spinach generally prefer the cooler temperatures of fall and spring. In fact, growing these vegetables in the summer months may lead to a tough, weedy texture combined with a grassy flavor, neither ideal for salad greens. Because these vegetables all grow very quickly, seeds can be planted from early to late fall and harvested throughout the autumn season for tender, tasty salad greens. Gre...

Imagine this: You have a garden or yard full of trees. Each year you prune and cut dying branches to make room for new growth. Each autumn you rake in several pounds of dead leaves, fallen fruits and other garden “leftovers.” What are you going to do? Ordinarily, you would just leave them alone scattered on your yard, where they would just decay or be buried in winter frost. You probably would clear out a fallen branch or two as well.   How to make Biochar Clear your garden of all living, organic material. Dig a trench approx 12 inches deep. Use a fork to loosen and turn the soil at the bottom. Pile brush in the bottom of the trench, approx 8 inches deep. Light the brush on fire, and allow it to smolder until the smoke thins and turns bluish-gray. Cover lightly with an inch of dirt and let it continue to smolder until it turns to charcoal chunks. Put out with water. Turn and mix the charcoal with the soil turned underneath and then fill in the trench. Continue the proce...

Water bath canning is the process of killing potentially harmful microorganisms through boiling. This method is also referred to as boiling water method, it is said to be the simplest and easiest method for preserving high acid foods. It destroys any active bacteria and microorganisms in your food that makes it safe for use at a later time. High acid fruits and vegetables are suitable for water bath canning because most of the present microorganisms in high acid foods are killed even through boiling only. In this process a temperature of 100 degree Celsius must be maintained to kill these microorganisms. Most canned foods like jellies, jams, relishes, pickles, conserves, preserves, marmalades and acidified tomatoes are processed under water bath canning. Water bath canning is not complicated or hard. All procedures in water bath canning are very simple, especially if you follow these easy directions. That’s why most people use this canning method. Here are the simple step by step dir...

Here are 10 easy ways to reduce your environmental impact: 1. Bring a Towel. Instead of using paper towels in the restroom at work, use a hand towel from home. It’s much more absorbent and does a better job at drying hands than thin paper towels and by the end of an average day, you’ve saved about 4 ft of paper. 2. Keep a Set of Dishes at Work. Keep a cup, plate, and bowl at your desk to use during lunch time or an office potluck. 3. Use an Insulated Mug. Drink from an insulated mug instead of a standard mug and reduce the need to reheat your coffee. 4. Pack a Lunch…Without the Brown Bag. Not only does packing a lunch save calories and cost, it also saves resources. Use a lunchbox instead of a bag; bonus points if you bring a cold lunch that you don’t have to heat. 5. Turn Off Your Monitor(s). If you need to leave your computer for a half-hour or more, turn off your monitor(s). If you’re leaving overnight, turn your computer off. 6. Bring Your Own Mug. Bringing a reusable m...

Here in the Northwest, the serviceberry bushes, ( Amelanchier canadensis ), along the Interstate are the first to show their color in the spring. And what a display they can be – they are often completely covered with a cloud of white blossoms that give way to edible fruit in the early summer. The Serviceberry is also known as the Juneberry, shadbush, sarviceberry, and saskatoon . The fact that these plants show up along the freeway gives you an idea of their hardiness. They can range in size from a medium-sized bush to a multi-stemmed tree that can grow up to 30 feet tall. The taste of their fruit and the display of their blossoms can also vary between varieties. No matter which cultivar you choose, you can expect a brilliant display of fragrant flowers in the very early spring, and by June you’ll be eating tasty berries that are rich in iron and copper. The fruit can be eaten fresh, or you can make it into jams, jellies and wine. This plant is considered a valuable landscape plant ...

Vegetables gathered at just the right time can be stored naturally or, in many cases, by deep freezing, for use months later in the kitchen. Nature, however, makes its own provision for over- winter storage and the survival of the species, which involves either the production of seed (peas, beans, etc.) or roots to remain in the ground to produce seed heads the following season (parsnips, carrots, etc.). Vegetables in this latter group store much better if left in the ground and lifted as required, or stored in clamps. parsnips can be left in the ground throughout the winter Root crops should never be stored in plastic bags, for they will invariably rot. If you have well- drained soils, where slugs are not a problem, a winter hardy variety of carrot such as ‘Autumn King’ is best left in the ground; carrots stored in sand or peat often shrivel, rot or go moldy. Parsnips are certainly best left in the row; frost improves the flavor but it is a good idea to lift a few at a time during...