Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
Successful DIY upside-down tomato planter
The talented Nick Switzer completed a DIY upside-down tomato planter according to specs from a plan we posted here earlier — a great gift for Mother’s Day.
You can do it, too!
Hope Mom loved it, Nick!
How to make an upside-down planter (a la Topsy Turvy)
DIY indoor planter
This looks like a very cool project. I feel like a sucker for buying these at a store (even though they were half off). Get some green in your home with these DIY upside-down planters!
i have had my eye on the sky planters by boskke since christmas time; something about upside down plants really strikes me as beautiful and intriguing. but i am low on funds, so i decided to try making my own with leftover containers from the various food items that make their way through my kitchen.
via DesignSponge and Lifehacker.
The urban farming challenge — why New York can’t be all that green
There are plenty of reasons why I love urban culture. For one, I can close my eyes and do the same thing that urban planners do — imagine a really wonderfully efficient world in which I live, work and play within about a two- or three-mile radius. In fact, this is mostly accurate in my own life right now, but I’m guilty of things (like occasional travel by air) that negate the heck out of that.
There’s also the idea of urban farming. I love green roofs. I love the perseverance of people doing things like cultivating potatoes on their porches or bees in Brooklyn. I love it.
But I have a hard time when someone goes out of their way to write a whole book and make the claim that the greenest place you can live is a city like New York. Read more
Urban potato crop in a bin on a balcony
Ed. note: Thanks to Camera editorial page editor Erika Stutzman for this guest post!
I’m an accidental organic potato farmer, and you can be too. Even if your only outdoor space is a balcony. Even if, like me, you happen to be a rather inexperienced, ineffective home gardener plagued by pests. Sure, I had a lot of hot peppers and a few tomatoes and herbs, but what I really had was a bumper crop of pests, including earwigs, slugs and a tenacious 11-year-old Bichon Frise with a taste for organic kale and corn. Want to know how a small white dog could pull ears off a 4-foot corn stalk? So do I.
A potato bin in action
But we harvested this week, just ahead of the frost, and to my surprise: My otherwise mediocre home garden yielded nearly 40 pounds of perfect potatoes. Surprisingly large, with picture-perfect roundness and smooth skin, and creamy interiors that taste amazing even without cream or butter.
The secret is inexpensive “potato bins,” great seed and the tenets of potato farming: Not too much fuss, no daily watering, and letting the stalks wither and die before harvest. Wither and die? I can do that! I did that to my entire garden all summer long! Read more
