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The Sorry Secrets of Sweeteners
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By
Elizabeth Yarnell
www.GloriousOnePotMeals.com (http://www.gloriousonepotmeals.com/)
The other day I went to buy some of the individual bags of
flavored waters for my kids....
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Building tomato cages
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By Roger Postley
First of all -- lets get this straight!!! There is absolutely only one correct way to raise tomatoes! (And that is whatever method works for you.) I have used stakes, trellises, store-bought cages, 'post and weave', and homemade cages. The latter has worked best for me and allows me the greatest production in the smallest area. The disadvantage is cost, construction time, and required storage space.
I like tomato cages! Concrete remesh can be found at most major consumer lumberyards. It comes in 50’ and 150' rolls. The wire is very strong and can be difficult to handle. Three essential tools are a small pair of bolt cutters, a large pair of slip-joint pliers, and a screwdriver type nut-driver with an interior hollow shaft diameter just slightly larger than the diameter of the remesh wire. There is variation in the rigidity of remesh – choose accordingly; stiffer wire is stronger but harder to bend.
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Summer Shape-Up: Sane + Organic
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Pass by any magazine rack this month, and the hard-to-miss
cover lines will seem all too familiar: “Lose 10 Pounds in...
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Take-away, give back
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Editor's note: This article and photo were contributed by Liz Kirchner of Manchester, UK. They feature an inspiring man, Shorker Tashek, who grows apple trees by the thousands in a modest garden tucked behind his take-out restaurant, giving the seedlings out to his customers and anyone else he can. Through his trees and his life, Shorker reminds us all that one person can make a difference.
Standing hunched in a sleety drizzle, Shorker Tashek surveys his orchard.
The back garden of Kyae’s Pizza and Curry Take-away in Bury, UK is crammed with yearling apple trees, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They're gushing from fruit boxes mounded with compost. They're sprouting from milk crates stacked in racks. They're stuffed in plastic pots. They're clustered shivering around our ankles in nooks of soil with no pots at all. A forest of cherries trees, head-high, in rows of rusting tomato puree cans huddle against a shed full of restaurant supplies - fat bundles of onions, stew pots, bright yellow tomato puree cans, sacks of chiliis. A white cat is sitting on a stack of burlap bags. Beyond the brick wall, a bus roars past spewing gravel and exhaust down Tottington Road, but in the rain, the garden smells sweet, cold, and soggy, like compost and cinnamon.
We hunker in the rain looking at the little trees. "I can tell you just the time I started planting," he says. "When my son was born. He is seven. I knew that if we don’t do this, the next generation will not respect us. They will say, 'How can we trust you? You have ruined the planet.'"
Your child's disapproval is strong motivation, surely, so. Tashek, 34, set about matter-of-factly greening the planet. In his native Bangladesh, he worked with volunteer organizations planting mangoes, bananas, and jackfruit to reduce hunger and bolster flood protection. In the UK for five years, he continues.
A giant hoarding above the gardens in brilliant blues and greens encourages passers-by to "Save the Planet. Save Yourself". People come everyday to take trees, he says.
His is the no-frills, no-nonsense "Grow trees. Give trees." approach. Tashek buys fruit-bearing trees, but plants apple seeds simply to produce plantable trees. Then he gives them away. One-by-one they go in little bundles along with the naan and cucumber salad to customers, neighbors, and friends at the take-away.
By the thousands they go to organizations like the Red Rose Forest, neighborhood Green Streets efforts. Elementary school classes replant barren fields with them. Garden centres hand them out at the till. "I grew 2,000 this year. Five thousand all together are in the gardens",
says Tashek.
There’s no knowing how many actually get into the ground, but the huge scale suggests quite a few. When it’s suggested that 5,000 trees is a lot of trees, he says, For one person it is a lot. For a country, it is nothing.
In from the cold, we drink hot chai on teal plastic couches under the take-away menu for pizza and poppadums, and newspaper clippings about Tash’s trees and his recent nomination for the prestigious Unilever Dragonfly Environmental Award.
"What he’s doing is to be commended", says Bury Councillor Dorothy Gunther. "Some of the trees are very small, but, you know, tall oaks from little acorns grow. Everything’s got to start somewhere. "
Saying good-bye and walking to town on that wintery afternoon, the lights are coming on in the houses, and I realize, there are apple trees in the gardens all along Tottington Road.
Story and photo copyright of Liz Kirchner of Manchester, UK.
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