Category: Appropriate Technologies

Building with Mud, and How to Build A Cob Oven

Cob is an earthen building material that is made of clay, sand, straw, and water. It has been used for thousands of years to construct homes and buildings. It has been used worldwide, but has only recently started to attract interest from Western countries. Cob has its origins in millennia of traditional building, in some […]

Cover Crop Solutions Chart

Here’s an awesome chart explaining how to u choose the best cover crop for your growing situation courtesy of Groworganic.com. Click here to download the Cover Crops Solutions Chart    

12 Plug-and-play home hydroponics systems

If you’ve ever been interested in growing some of your own food, but the lack of a garden plot or yard has kept you from pursuing it, you may want to consider starting an indoor or balcony hydroponics garden. Technology has paved the way for quite a few different plug-and-play hydroponics systems, ranging from aeroponics […]

For New Yorkers, a farmers market on your phone

BY: Jenny An, GRIST A community-supported agriculture (CSA) share can be a culinary battle royale. Every other week, it’s you versus a mystery box. No tap outs, no substitutions. Just a bitter melon so fresh, you wouldn’t dare toss it out. And while there’s something to be said for experimentation, sometimes you just want something […]

Finding a fishy solution

Microbiologist devises a model for sustainable urban farming Posted by Greg Rienzi on the JHU Gazette August 1, 2011 There’s something fishy going on at Baltimore’s Cylburn Arboretum, and the results could be delicious—and sustainable. Earlier this summer, David Love, a microbiologist and project director with the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns […]

Simple and Easy Clay Oven Design

I  built several of these ovens in Panama… they are simple, cheap, and cook a great pizza or loaf of bread! – Jeremy Build Your Own Earth Oven The following is an excerpt from Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century by Dick and James Strawbridge (DK Publishing, 2010).   Few tastes compare to the stone-baked flavor you get […]

How to Brew Compost Tea (Videos)

By:  Sami Grover Whether it’s discussing how worm compost suppresses plant disease, or getting a sneak peak at industrial-scale composting, I’ve talked a lot about both methods and usage of compost here on TreeHugger. But when I posted on a video about making compost extraction, I realized we’ve barely covered the opportunities for producing liquid plant feeds like […]

Earthworms Could Be Used to Clean Up Hazardous Toxins in Soil

Cleaning up disused industrial sites can be a hazardous line of work, however researchers in South America have found an ally in one of the most unlikely creatures on the planet: the earthworm. According to the last issue of International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, researchers believe that earthworms may be able to process “hazardous material containing […]