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Sometimes I miss living in Seattle. I used to teach at a converted building dedicated to nonprofit orgs and low-income artist housing. There are similar endeavors in many cities, but in Seattle it’s everywhere and at the Good Shepherd Center, located a mile away from my former home, one of the tenants, Seattle Tilth, inspires and educates people to garden organically and consider urban chicken coops and beehives. My neighbors upstairs turned half our yard into a garden. Last week it held a workshop in Herbal Tea Gardening and on the 23rd it gives one on Composting for Apartment Dwellers. Take a look at the tenants inside this one building. Shouldn’t every city have one?
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The government illegally approved a genetically modified, herbicide-resistant strain of sugar beets without adequately considering the chance they will contaminate other beet crops, a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White rejected the U.S. Department of Agriculture's decision in 2005 to allow Monsanto Co. to sell the sugar beets, known as "Roundup-Ready" because they are engineered to coexist with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. 
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Articles
The Friendly Garden PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dan Thompson   

greenfood

 

We all know that basil, tomatoes, and garlic are perfect together on a dinner plate. This combination makes a meal with unbeatable flavor, whether you use just those three ingredients or add a myriad of other components. They work so well together that it’s hard not to think that they were created just for each other. It gets even harder when you learn that they not only cooperate on the tongue, but in the garden as well. Plant all three together and you will have a strong and healthy patch of produce, not to mention an Italian chef’s dream.

It’s no secret that pests love some plants and hate others, and this little grouping takes advantage of that fact. Tomatoes are subject to attack from all sorts of critters, but basil and garlic help stave them off. Garlic is responsible for keeping the red spider mite at bay, and can also be used to make infusions that kill ants, spiders, caterpillars and worms. Simply soak some crushed garlic in water for a few days, spray the garden, and poof! No more pests.

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File Under Useful PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dan Thompson   

toolhandfile

Three-square, half-round bastard, and rat tail all sound like names you would call your ex, but they also are commonly applied to hand files. The difference is that these are actually the names of the tools instead of expressions of disgust. Considering the imagination that goes into classifying files, perhaps it is not surprising that there is confusion about what they are for and how to use them. In the hopes of demystifying this incredibly useful tool, here is a quick guide to hand files: how to pick them, how to use them, and how to care for them.

Hand files are nothing more than pieces of tool steel with teeth cut into them, much like a saw, and come in an astounding variety of shapes and sizes. Miniscule escapement files shave off the smallest fragments of materiel while two foot long mill files move several millimeters of steel with one stroke. Files can be flat, round, bladed, or, in the case of rifflers, oddly curved to get into tight places. Files can cut any material softer than themselves, which includes nearly everything. Metals, woods, plastics, and wax are all on the menu, along with some rocks and minerals. All of these and more can be shaped, sized, sharpened, and smoothed with incredible accuracy using minimal skill.

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Arnica Montana and My Herbal Snobbery PDF Print E-mail
Written by Liz Smith   

arnicasmArnica montana

There is some confusion surrounding Arnica so I would like to help clear a few things up......
The dried or fresh flowers are used in many TOPICAL preparations for sore muscles or bruising and trauma to the body that dose NOT have open wounds. Arnica should never be put on broken skin or taken internally. That being said the HOMEOPATHIC version can be taken internally, you would use it for many of the same reasons as the flowers, especially good after giving birth for you and the baby, also great after a bad fall or accident. I am sure to keep it with me at all times because my little ones have been known to take a few dives now and then.

As a testament to Arnica when my Grandmother was remolding her home she fell from a ladder detaching her alkalis tendon, she refused pain meds and continued taking homeopathic Arnica before and after the surgery to reattach the tendon. She made a full and speedy recovery. Now I don't suggest refusing pain meds but that seemed to work for her.

I would suggest keeping homeopathic Arnica with you at all times especially if you are accident prone or have children. If you are a massage therapist I would try infusing Arnica flowers in your massage oils for those clients who complain of muscle pain or who have just experienced trauma.

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Making a Worm Bin PDF Print E-mail
Written by Courtney Purchon   

I’m new to the world of urban backyard container gardening, and it shows.

It all started last January on a cold Sunday – the kind of cold that sucks the moisture out of the air and reminds you why green things perish in the winter months. I had been out to dinner in Providence with my favorite girl, Emily, the night before, and we had talked about urban composting. I was agonizing over the amount of veggie scraps and food waste that went into the trash in my apartment, because I eat a veritable ton of vegetables as a healthy vegetarian typically does. I brought up vermicomposting – composting using worms, specifically red wrigglers, as a means of speeding up the process of turning food waste into rich, fertile soil, while simultaneously avoiding large piles of fly attracting/producing garbage that people typically envision when they picture compost heaps. With vermicomposting, the little guys munch their way through your vegetable and fruit waste at the incredible rate of 1-2 pounds a week, so the pile never gets very big, and if you play your cards right, does not smell or attract flies. I had heard it worked and was compact enough for city living, but had no clue where to obtain worms in the dead of winter. The conversation went something like this:

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Coffee: The Healthy Drug Addiction PDF Print E-mail
Written by Kevin Leland   

coffeebeanBenefits Offered by This Popular Morning Beverage

I vividly recall like it was yesterday the time I had my first delicious cup of coffee. Rhode Island just got dumped on by the Blizzard of '78 and Salty Brine announced over the radio that there would obviously be no school today! I was huddled around the table, with the grown-ups, with little heat, playing cards for quarters. My Mom had just perked a fresh pot -on the gas stove with one of those old type percolator pots. "Mr. Coffee" was out of commission along with the rest of the electrical appliances due to the power outage. I was 11 years old, and a little bit concerned that it might stunt my growth...maybe my worry was justified; I'm only 5' 6". Actually, that's an old wives' tale...coffee does not stunt growth. But there are other reasons that youngsters shouldn't drink more than a little bit, once in a while.

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More Articles...
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  • King of the Garden
  • Sullivan Harbor Farm Smokehouse
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