Broward Directory Blog

Hopefully, you haven’t planted your tomatoes yet, because I have two tips to share with you that will make your plants happier and stronger. 

Save Your Eggshells 

During the late winter or early spring, I begin saving all of mine. Just give them a quick rinse and keep them in a bowl on your counter to allow them to dry out. Once you have an amount that seems like a lot, put them into a baggie. Then take your rolling pin, or instrument of your choice, and crush them into smithereens. Trust me, it feels great.

When you plant your tomatoes, mix and sprinkle the crushed eggshells into the surrounding soil. Tomatoes love calcium, and this also helps to prevent blossom end rot, which is a common problem with tomatoes.

Bury Part of the Stem 

Plant the tomato so that part of the stem with no leaves is under the soil. Tomatoes are wondrous things that will actually sprout additional roots from the part of the plant you put under the soil, making the plant stronger and better able to absorb water and other nutrients.

Now get to work planting your tomatoes!

Article source: http://www.motherearthnews.com/city-farming/two-tomato-tips.aspx

A lot of people have been asking us what incentives are still in place
for 2012. The answer: All of them. While there were a few changes in 2011, the
majority of programs that will impact the average homeowner remain the same.
Here is an overview…

 30% Federal Tax Credit is still available. Now it
applies to your 2012 taxes. It is a credit, not a deduction. If you buy a
$10,000 solar system, you can write off $3,000 from your taxes owed. Don’t pay
enough taxes to get the full amount back? You can take up to 5 years to claim
the full amount. Application is simple, just fill out IRS form 5695 and submit
it with your tax returns (this applies for the 2011 tax year as well.). This is
for Electric Solar Systems and Solar Hot Water. The current expiration date
is 2016. 

Production Incentive is still available. This is
the payment the utility makes to you for all the power you produce, whether you
use it or it goes back out to the grid. They pay you up to 54 cents per kWh, up
to $5,000 per year. This payment comes to you once a year in the form of a
check from the utility. This is for Grid Tied Electric Solar Systems. The
current expiration date is 2020. 

Net Metering is still in place. This is the
credit the utility gives you for the electricity you send back to your
neighbors. When a solar electric system is installed, we change out your
current meter for a bi-directional meter, so it keeps track of what is coming
and going. On your utility bill, there will be a credit for the power you send
back. This is for Grid Tied Electric Solar Systems. There is no expiration
date. 

Reduced Sales Tax changed a little in 2011. Now
the way it works is…systems under 10kw are sales tax exempt. No sales tax is
ever paid. On systems larger than 10kw sales tax is paid up front, and you can
then apply for a 75% sales tax credit. It is very rare that a residential
system is larger than 10kw, so most of you are not impacted by this. This is
for Electric Solar Systems. The current expiration date is 2013. 

Accelerated Depreciation is for businesses. 50% of the
system cost can be depreciated in the first year, and the remainder over the
following 4 years. That is 5 years to 100% depreciation. This is for Electric
Solar Systems and Solar Hot Water.

What does this mean for you? Solar isn’t like a cell phone,
a computer, or a DVD player, the next great thing doesn’t make this year’s
model obsolete. There are no major advances on the horizon, and while prices
are coming down, it is happening at a fairly slow pace. What are we saying? Now
is the time to buy. The sooner you buy solar, the more incentives you earn
before the laws expire. So while you might pay $5 less a panel in 5 years, you
just lost 5 years of production and net metering incentives, and the tax credit
will be gone.

Want more information?

Visit our booth at the Mother Earth News Fair in Washington.

Join us for Solar in the NW at the Mother Earth News Fair in Washington.

Check out our website: www.southsoundsolar.com
Visit http://www.dsireusa.org/ for a complete list of all the renewable energy laws and programs in your area.

Kirk Haffner will present a workshop at the Puyallup, Wash. 2012 MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR.  

Please visit the FAIR website for more information about the Puyallup, Wash. FAIR June 2-3, and the Seven Springs, Pa., FAIR Sept. 24-25. Tickets are on sale now. 

You can also get FAIR updates on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

 

Article source: http://www.motherearthnews.com/mother-earth-news-fair/solar-electric-incentive-status-whats-changing-whats-not.aspx

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TALLAHASSEE – A organization opposed to gay marriage is asking a federal appeals court to reject parts of a Florida election law that seeks to rein in outside political groups.

The National Organization for Marriage is challenging the constitutionality of 2010 legislation that dealt with what are known as “electioneering communications organizations” — which are not directly connected with candidates or parties but can run ads and send mailers to voters.

Attorneys for the national non-profit group and the state argued last week before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The appeal came after Senior U.S. District Judge Stephan Mickle, of Gainesville, upheld the constitutionality of the law last year.

Electioneering communications organizations, or ECOs, are structured differently than traditional political-action committees and provide another vehicle for outside groups to try to influence elections or issues. In the case, the National Organization for Marriage argues that the state law “chills” political speech and that the definition of ECOs is too vague.

The group said in a court document it would have to comply with a “panoply of burdens” if it was deemed an ECO, including reporting information about contributions and expenditures. Also, it said it would spend only a small part of its overall budget on Florida elections.

“The weight of these burdens is such that the speech would simply not be worth it for NOM (National Organization for Marriage),” the document said. “NOM does not want to bear these political-committee burdens that Florida imposes under the electioneering-communications organization label.”

Lawmakers passed the measure after an earlier ECO law was found unconstitutional. Without such a law in place, the state argued in a court document, “interest groups could spend freely to influence elections without disclosing information necessary for voters to make informed decisions.”

It pointed, in part, to a notorious 2009 special Senate election in Northeast Florida that included shadowy, racially-charged mailers sent to voters. St. Augustine Republican John Thrasher, who was the target of repeated attacks, won the election.

Article source: http://www.news-press.com/article/20120516/NEWS0107/120516026/0/HENDERSONVILLE03/Appeals-court-rule-Florida-law-targeting-political-groups?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Sol 2951

After spending 19 weeks working in one place while solar power was too low for driving during the Martian winter, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is on the move again. The winter worksite was on the north slope of an outcrop called Greeley Haven. The rover used its rear hazard-avoidance camera after nearly completing the May 8 drive, capturing this view looking back at the Greeley Haven.

Since landing in the Meridiani region of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST), Opportunity has driven 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers).

This image is of Opportunity’s traverse map from Sol 2951 and shows the entirety of the rover’s travels to this point. A sol is a Martian day.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/University of Arizona

Article source: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2250.html

Use Stain Rx for removing tough stains. Stain Rx has a very long and successful track record. It has been used as Erado-Sol® in the medical and industrial fields for more than 40 years prior to being offered for household use.

Stain Rx contains surfactants, safe solvents and stain reducing components and has no phosphorous, peroxide or chlorine bleach.

Stain Rx is pH neutral and will not adversely affect colorfast washable fabrics and MAY BE DISCHARGED DIRECTLY INTO SEPTIC TANKS WITH NO HARM.

Stain Rx removes many tough and even old stains. Please keep in mind, NO STAIN REMOVING PRODUCT REMOVES ALL STAINS. For best results, apply as soon as possible.

Stain Rx is recommended for:

• Red, Rosé, White Wines and beer stains
• Most drinks and sauces: including cola, fresh tea, brandy, whisky, rum, fresh coffee, apple juice, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, yellow mustard and ketchup
• Iodine and most medicinal stains
• Perspiration stains
• Most fresh hair dye stains
• Fresh blood stains

Stain Rx has been test to clean the following materials:

• Colorfast washable fabrics
• Platinum, gold, silver and diamond jewelry
• Sinks, stainless steel, plastic items, cabinets, counter tops and other non porous surfaces
• Hands
• Glassware
• Upholstery, carpets furniture
• Yellowed fabrics

Cambridge Diagnostic Products
(800) 525-6262
http://www.stainrx.com/order.php

Article source: http://www.southfloridabusinessworld.com/2012/05/stain-remover-red-wine-stains-2/

By Donna Gehrke-White, Sun Sentinel
6:24 a.m. EDT, May 16, 2012

South Floridians used and abused their credit cards, and some are woefully behind in payments. In fact, South Florida has the worst credit ranking in the nation.

So says an index released early Wednesday by CredAbility, a nonprofit credit counseling agency. Of the 25 top metro areas surveyed, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties rate the worst at trying to dig themselves out of credit card debt.

Read more…
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-worst-credit-rating-20120515,0,2146740.story

Last week as I was preparing to plant our Roselle, Hibiscus sabdariffa, Mother Earth News editor Cheryl Long shared this comment from a reader, “there was an article about hibiscus flower tea lowering blood pressure. I followed the recipe and after 1 month my BP is normal! Even with meds I remained at 155/98 and have had trips to the ER over it, but now it is 117/71, normal!” At the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange farm, we love growing our day length neutral strain of Thai Red Roselle for a refreshing summer drink, a delicious cranberry like jam or sauce and tangy leaves to add to summer salads as well as its blood pressure lowering properties. You can read my article to learn how to grow your own Roselle.

Our new certified sweet potato grower Clif Slade stopped by the farm today to drop off All Purple and Porto Rico sweet potato slips for our
first shipment. Clif used to be an extension agent in Surrey County for many years, and he was full of useful tips on growing these fabulous plants. I’ve always known it was important to wait for the soil to be warm enough before planting, but how warm? And how do you
measure?

Cliff says his daddy always planted sweet potatoes on Memorial Day weekend, but a more scientific way is to test first with a soil  thermometer. When the soil has been 65 degrees for a week, it’s warm enough (testing every day at 10 am.) 

For every week earlier that you plant your sweet potatoes, you can lose 100 bushels per week. Sweet potatoes can yield 500 bushels per acre, but that’s reduced to 400 bushels if you plant a week too early, 300 bushels a week earlier, and so on (other things being equal, like fertility, inputs, and moisture.)

Cliff also reminded us that mature sweet potatoes don’t do  well with cold soil. If frost hits, get them out of the ground right away! Harvest that same day and cure them in a warm place (80-90 degrees if you can get it that warm) with high humidity (80 or 90%).

Another root we’re planting right now is sunchokes. Also called Jerusalem artichokes, they’re tubers of a sunflower-relative. Raw, they’re crisp like water chestnuts. They have become popular in recent times because the sugars in these sweet roots are inulin, a form that doesn’t spike your glycemic index. I think these perennials are the easiest-to-grow edible root in our gardens. They have really low fertility  requirements, and they’re happy and disease-free through heat and drought.

Sunchokes are ready for harvest around November. In milder areas, you can store them in the ground and harvest as needed all winter. In the north people usually harvest before hard freezes and store in a root cellar. Just be sure that by May you’ve got your sunchokes re-planted at your desired spacing. This will ensure the plants make nice big roots for next year’s harvest.

We’re trying to spread the news about yacon, a sweet, edible high-yielding tuber from the Andes, that’s a relative of sunchokes, but much sweeter. We peel them and eat them raw, out of hand like a fruit, but they’re also excellent sliced in salads. Served this way, we’ve had people mistake them for pears. Both yacon and Jerusalem Atichokes contain inulin which helps keep blood sugar stable, so they’re great for people who have diabetes.

We got our seedstock from food writer and Mother Earth News contributing editor William Woys Weaver as well as seed saver Michael Youngs, who grows these subtropical plants in upstate New York – they’re not photo-period sensitive. They store exceptionally well: Michael takes them to work as a snack all winter. Simply harvest yacon in the fall before frost, and we find they’ll keep until spring. Yacon makes two kinds of tubers – an inner ring of small roots that should be saved for planting, and deeper down in the soil the larger edible roots (each one 6 to 12 inches long!) We are hoping for a large enough crop of both the Violet skinned, orange fleshed Marada from William Woys Weaver and the crisp sweet White yacon from Mike Youngs to offer in our 2013 catalog. Who says you can’t have your yacon and eat it too?

Thanks for stopping by and we hope you’ll come back often to see what we’re growing and cooking.

___________________________________________________________________

Ira Wallace lives and gardens at Acorn Community Farm home of  Southern Exposure Seed Exchange where she coordinates variety selection and seed growers. Southern Exposure offers 700+varieties of Non-GMO, open pollinated and organic seeds. Ira is also a co-organizer of the  Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello. She serves on the board of the Organic Seed Alliance and is a frequent presenter at the Mother Earth News Fairs  and many other events throughout the Southeast. Her first book the “The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast” will be available in 2013  

Article source: http://www.motherearthnews.com/gardening-in-the-southeast/planting-healthy-hibiscus-delicious-yacon-nutritious-sunchokes.aspx

A couple of Sundays ago I spoke to the “Transition Cornwall” group.
There was a good turn out and it’s a great group with lots of great
activities. They are very much committed to increasing resilience in
their community. Resilience to peak oil, climate change and economic
collapse. Oh sure, it’s a fun group!

Actually they were really a fun group with lots of good things
happening. I tried to shift the theme of my talk a bit since my
“Thriving During Challenging Times” presentation is more focused on
personal resilience. Instead I took the approach that they have this
incredible group of individuals trying to draw attention to these
potential challenges and prepare the community for their impacts. The
reality though, is that if the members of the group aren’t personally
prepared they won’t be of much use to everyone else when they’re really
needed. And I do sincerely believe this.

There were some great questions and comments afterwards.

One person suggested that I was basically discussing the concept of
“The Titanic,” a movie that I finally recently watched thanks to my
daughter Katie. If the heat wave in March taught us anything, it’s that
one of the potential shocks to the system, climate change, is happening
in a big way and it’s going to make food production more problematic.
Throw in the high price of gas during a period of questionable economic
health indicating that we’ve hit “peak oil,” and you’ve got a bit of a
mess. So as this person pointed out after hearing my talk, we’ve
probably hit an iceberg and his question was, “Which class of passenger
are you?”

I am certainly not a first class passenger. Financially I am in the
‘steerage’ class. But from a preparation standpoint, as I’ve discussed
in previous blog posts, not only did I bring my own life jacket with me,
I brought my own lifeboat and I was kind of already in it when we hit
the “iceberg.” And I’m pretty comfortable if others on the ship are
surprised by the impact or the impact on them. The writing is on the
wall. You can read it and respond to it, or you can hope you won’t have
to deal with it. The problem with reality is that it has a way of
affecting you regardless of whether you pay attention to it or not.

I also discussed the “ice storm” scenario with this group, since when
the ice storm hit in 1998 leaving millions without power for weeks,
they were right in the heart of the affected area. I asked how many who
had been without power for a week or more had bought a generator, and
not very many hands went up. As I’ve noticed in the past with similar
groups, there seems to be an inertia where you convince yourself after
an event that the likelihood of it happening again is remote, even if
the opposite is the case. I’ll never understand this.

A gentleman who stood up to thank me for my presentation talked about
his experience with the ice storm, and how a street full of neighbors
who had previously barely spoken to each other, suddenly had a real
sense of community. “We knew who had water and who had heat and who had
food and so we worked as a team.” After the ice storm was over, they all
went back to their TV sets and didn’t really talk much. I’m thinking
his participation in the Transition movement is likely to provide him
with a more permanent network of like-minded people to be proactive
with.

And then there was the elderly gentleman who slept through my entire
presentation. No really … he was gone before my first slide. After the
presentation a number of people came up to ask questions and even in his
declining years he managed to burst through and be the first person in
the line. But he didn’t have a question. He was just there to vent about
wind turbines, which are becoming more common in the Province of
Ontario because of the Green Energy Act. I did not talk about wind
turbines in my presentation, except a brief mention of my own small
unit, and I did not endorse or in any way suggest that I was there to
represent the Province of Ontario and its Green Energy Act. But as often
happens when I do these kinds of talks, I become the target.

I’m the target because people in my province seem to really hate
solar and wind power. With a passion. Why? Because… they are causing our
electricity bills to go up (WRONG) and because they use so many
resources to make (versus a nuclear plant?) and because they are ugly
(compared to the massive power corridors with high voltage lines running
throughout the province?) and of course, because they kill birds.

So I explained to him that the bird kill numbers are blown way out of
proportion because the original wind farms had too many turbines and
latticework towers that birds loved to roost on. If you were a bird
today, where could you possibly sit on a wind turbine? The towers are
round and smooth. But alas, he and so many others are convinced that
they are killing birds by the millions. It was apparent to me that I was
not going to win this argument so I finally concurred with the
gentleman and suggested he take it up with his provincial member of
parliament. And I tried to take another question. But he persisted.

I was being paid to be there so I was trying to be professional but
he wouldn’t give up … even though HE HAD SLEPT THROUGH MY ENTIRE
PRESENTATION AND HADN’T HEARD A WORD I’D SAID! So I suggested to him
that there are numerous studies that show every songbird in North
America is in decline because of climate change, so if I were a bird,
I’d rather take my chances with a wind turbine. He wasn’t listening. I
mentioned how the Lennox Generating station near me uses crude oil to
produce electricity and how one night its two massive smoke stacks had
killed 10,000 migrating birds. Was he angry about that? Nope, he just
wanted to complain about the wind turbines.

So then I asked him, “what about those skyscrapers in the big cities
that kill birds every night?” Nope, he wasn’t concerned about that, and
he suggested that the ground around my wind turbine was probably
littered with carcasses of dead birds. I told him, quite honestly, that I
have never seen a dead bird anywhere around my wind turbine, but that I
often find them after they have flown into the windows of my
guesthouse. It breaks my heart, but hey, it’s a building … “warning
birds stay away!”

Apparently his windows never kill birds. So I asked him if he had a
cat, because our cats kill birds. “So you have a cat? And it kills
birds?” So perhaps we should ban cats. Really, because if they kill
birds they have no place in our world.

I tried to end my exchange with him at that point and go on to take
other questions, but he came back a number of times to make new points
about how bad wind turbines are. I felt kind of bad because I got close
to losing my cool, but some people push my buttons and it was even more
insulting that he attempted to dominate the conversation after sleeping
through the presentation, which really had nothing to do with wind
farms. I’m going to have a strategy next time and even though he’s my
elder and deserving of my respect, if he thinks I owe him an explanation
for something I wasn’t there to discuss, I’m going to shut people like
him down early, and move on much sooner.

I had a super afternoon with a great bunch of people. I wish I were
able to deal with the hecklers in the crowd better. Like the one bad
apple in the barrel, people like him have a tendency to sour an
otherwise wonderful experience.

For more information about Cam or his books please visit www.cammather.com or www.aztext.com

Article source: http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-in-canada/i-do-not-represent-the-wind-industry.aspx

Expedition 31 Prepares For Launch

The Soyuz rocket is seen in the monitor of a video camera moments before Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineers Joseph Acaba and Sergei Revin arrived to board the rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for their flight to join their crew mates already aboard the International Space Station. The craft successfully launched at 11:01 p.m. EDT, Monday, May 14, 2012.

The trio will dock to the station’s Poisk Mini-Research Module at 12:38 a.m. Thursday, bringing Expedition 31 to its full six-member complement.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Article source: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2249.html

RELEASE
:
12-156

Expedition 31 Trio Blasts Off for International Space Station

HOUSTON — NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba, Russian Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin blasted off for the International Space Station at 10:01 p.m. CDT Monday, May 14 (9:01 a.m. Baikonur time on May 15), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Acaba, Padalka and Revin are scheduled to dock their Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft to the Poisk module of the station at 11:38 p.m. Wednesday, May 16. They will join Expedition 31 Commander Oleg Kononenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineers Don Pettit of NASA and André Kuipers of the European Space Agency, who have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since Dec. 23, 2011. The six astronauts and cosmonauts will work together for about two months.

NASA Television will provide live docking coverage beginning at 11 p.m. on May 16. Hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will occur about three hours later on May 17.

Upon arrival, Acaba, Padalka and Revin will become members of the Expedition 31 crew, restoring the station’s crew complement to six and continuing scientific research aboard the station.

Pettit, Kononeko and Kuipers are scheduled to return to Earth on July 1. Acaba, Padalka and Revin will return home in mid-September.

Also on board with the crew was a small “Smokey Bear” plush toy serving as the traditional Soyuz “talisman.” Smokey Bear is the U.S. national symbol for wildfire prevention. Prior to the flight, Acaba explained he proposed flying Smokey Bear in an effort to raise awareness of human-caused wildfires. Acaba, an avid outdoorsman, holds two degrees in geology and served as an environmental education awareness promoter while in the U.S. Peace Corps.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

To follow Twitter updates from NASA’s Expedition 31 astronauts, visit:

https://twitter.com/astro_Pettit

https://twitter.com/AstroAcaba

For more information about Expedition 31 and the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

– end –

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Article source: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/may/12-156_Exp31-32_Launch.html