Winston Duke As Paz Vizsla

The basics of growing food

So, growing food sounds very intimidating, and in reality, it’s something people knew how to do thru all history, and it’s made even easier by new methods of ‘no till’ and ‘no dig’ garden. I didn’t know almost anything about it until 3 years ago, when I got a plot in a community garden and started growing food with no experience. Still it went good! Here’s what I learned:

The basics are as simple as ‘if you put a seed underground and keep it wet, it’s going to come out.’ If you start off from that, even if you know nothing else, eventually you will succeed. The additional stuff is done to ensure success. The biggest actual issue of gardening isn’t how, but when. When are you supposed to put all the seeds underground to get good harvest? For most of the plants, it can be as simple as 'Spring’. For others, it’s very important just when in the spring you plant it.

Let’s say you want to start your first garden, you want to plant some onions, lettuce, peas, green beans, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. All of these can be planted in the spring! But these plants are sorted in 2 categories: Those who can survive a frost, and those who cannot. We call these 'frost hardy’ (those who survive the frost) and frost-tender (those plants will die if they’re exposed to lower than 0 temperatures). From the ones I listed, onions, lettuce and peas are frost hardy! It means you can plant them very early in spring, such as February and March, and they can be hit with snow and ice and be just fine. They can also be planted in autumn, and they only really start growing in the spring.

Green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini are frost-tender, meaning you absolutely can’t grow them before the chance of freezing temperatures is gone. This is known in gardening as 'the last frost date’. Every area has a different last-frost date, so it’s good to google yours to be sure you’re planting these when it’s safe to do so. For me it’s mid-April.

Now, since it’s a long time to wait for your plants to grow if you’ve only planted the seeds in mid April, people have found a way around it by planting the seeds in little containers inside of their house, or in a greenhouse, so they grow in a nice warm place on a windowsill, and are moved out in the ground when it’s warm and safe. This is a very fun thing to do as you will have bunch of little plants growing in your home. Important thing to know about it is to use really light and airy soil, not garden soil, (you can use forest soil!) and to make sure you’re not over-watering them and you give them as much light as possible.

Soil is another big thing in gardening, the grass grows so easily from it, but you can’t exactly plant your seeds into the grass; they will get suffocated. For a long time people have tilled the ground to make it empty of all the weeds and easy to handle; however this isn’t healthy for the soil, because it ruins the quality of top-soil, exposes it to sun and wind erosion, and it dries up very easily. Here are some beneficial methods of gardening: mulching and no-dig. Mulching means adding stuff like hay, straw, tree leaves, woodchips, pine needles on top of the soil. You’re protecting your soil from sun, wind, erosion, drying out, and if your mulch is thick and dark enough, no weeds will grow in your garden. You are gardening by science.

So what does this mean for you, when you’re standing before a patch of grass, thinking of turning it into a garden? You need to do this months before the actual planting, using time to your benefit is the smartest thing a gardener can do. You pick a patch of land and bring in everything you can on top: cut grass, hay, tree leaves you raked or found, straw if you have any, woodchips, anything that will stop the grass from growing. If you really want to build up your soil you can bring in compost too! All that organic material will eventually turn into compost and fertilize your garden as it degrades to soil. It’s important to not mix it with the soil, and to only keep it on top of the plants. Mixing it will deplete the soil of nitrogen, and you need nitrogen to grow anything green. If you keep bringing in organic material for years of gardening, and on top of that put some compost as well, in 3-5 years your soil will become so rich and soft you will no longer have to use tools to plant in it.

But, hey, if it’s your first time, you don’t need to aim for perfection. If you didn’t prepare your soil in the fall, whatever! You can still pull the weeds, dig around a little to make some clear soil, and plant your stuff! I’ve done this last-minute planting and it works just fine. Mulching and adding organic material is only the easiest, most scienc-y way to garden.

The next big thing in gardening is spacing and depth: how far apart should your plants be? And how deep to plant them? For depth, the rule of the thumb is 'twice as deep as the seed is tall’. But I’ve seen people pull various shit in this area and succeed so do what you want. As of spacing, I would also say, try out what fits for you. It takes a year of gardening to get a sense of just how big the plants get, and what would be ideal spacing for each of them. I decided only on my third year to plant tomatoes VERY far apart, because I realized in this case, one plant will give me more than 8kg tomatoes and it’s much less work than planting 3 times as many plants that are close together. Peas seem to like to grow close tho, for some reason. Sometimes you can decide you want a bunch of tiny plants because you’ll eat them young, so you don’t space them on purpose, people do that with lettuce, leeks, spinach. If you want your plants as big as possible with as much yield as possible, give them half a meter and see what happens.

Fertilization is another big thing in gardening; if you add a lot of compost and mulch your garden consistently, you won’t need a lot more; however there’s a cool free trick you can do (if you’re not currently sick): you can mix your urine with 10x water, and water your plants with that. And I really mean mix it with 10x water! Plants can get very fried by it and start to wilt if they’re bombed with too much fertilizer at once! There are rules for this: use it when you want your plants to grow a lot of greenery, not if you want them to flower or produce fruit. This fertilizer is rich in nitrogen, and nitrogen inspires plants to grow more leaves! If you wanna fertilize them later in their growth, put a lot of nettle plants in a big container with water, leave it in the sun for 10 days; when it starts to smell real bad, it’s ready. (you can also do this with comfrey). Also dilute it with 10x water! Don’t use these fertilizers on bean or pea plants, or any legume, they don’t like it.

Now I’ve given you so much info at once, you’re probably struggling to take it all in, so here’s a good youtube channel where I learned all I know: Roots and Refuge. If you watch this lady garden for long enough, she will tell you all of the secrets.

I remember being a first time gardener overwhelmed with worry; what if I fail, what if nothing grows, what if I kill all the plants, what if I have a black thumb, what if the plants die because I am stupid, what if I put all of this work in and get nothing, what if people make fun of me, what if I run into problems I won’t be able to solve. Here are some of the answers to these!

A part of what you grow will DEFINITELY DIE. I can guarantee it, it happens to everyone, every single garden in the world has had plants die, sometimes for no reason at all, but in no case will EVERYTHING die. We all count on a part of our plants dying, becoming slug food, not doing well in general, and we always plant 30% more than we absolutely need. Even if you are personally responsible for killing the plants, the plants will not hold it against you! Plants appreciate you spreading their seed regardless of success, they understand that by trying multiple times you will eventually succeed and they absolutely want you to learn thru occasional failure. The answer is again to plant a lot, and it never ever happened that nothing came out of it. Most often, it’s not going to be your fault at all. Sometimes the year will be good for tomatoes and carrots, and bad for peas. It’s all okay! Because you just planted extra peas, and you’ll get more tomatoes than you expected to have.

If you have the desire to plant food, you do not have a black thumb; the green thumb is in the heart that yearns to grow. You’re not stupid if your plants die, plants die for everyone. And people are likely to come at you with million advice; listen to no one, try everything yourself. If they make fun of you, they’re gonna look real stupid when you have home-grown food. Any problem you might run into while gardening is google-able! Or you can join a page of gardeners and they’ll be happy to identify the issue.

The real main issue with gardening are slugs and bug-type pests, and that is a problem for another day because all I know to do is to yeet those away by hand and shake my finger very sternly at them. Hope this helps!

This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.

That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.

This is why we download. 

 Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks

Textbooknova 

Reddit

Bookboon 

Textbookrevolution 

GaTech Math Textbooks

Ebookee 

Freebookspot 

Free-ebooks

Getfreeebooks 

BookFinder

Oerconsortium 

Project Gutenberg

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I grow our own vegetables. Many hybrid and heirloom varieties are bred for flavor rather than for commercial appeal and travel. There are entire species on the allotment that you can’t easily buy in stores because of this - like salsify, a root vegetable that tastes of fish and shellfish. Our neighbours happily take it to make vegan latkes of alarming similarity to fishcakes. You cannot sell it in stores because - despite looking like a white parsnip - it turns brown when you pick it if you scrape/bruise/cut the white root in any way, or damage the delicate little hairs, for some reason, it BLEEDS RED and is very upsetting to look at.

There are whole classes of foods like this. Foods that just don’t ship well or look good on supermarket shelves. Forbidden fruits. Vegetables that bleed and taste like meat. Sorry about this

one of my “special interests” in the past couple of years has been exploring fast fashion vs. slow fashion. it has been a long journey trying to find clothes that actually 1) fit me 2) look good 3) are made from material that is not actively shoving plastic in the ecosystem 4) involve ethical labor, fair trade, fairly compensated, etc

before i did this research, i really had no clue about fabrics or fashion brands. i used to think i had zero interest in fashion, in fact.

i grew up wearing walmart and thrift store clothes, and when i went to college i bought clothes from target and asos. something started to shift a little bit when i found vintage resellers on etsy and ebay… those clothes were so unique. but a lot of the vintage clothes were polyester blends, stiff, and would fall apart as easily as my asos clothes. i would leave them hanging in my closet and never wear them. i would wear the same old t shirts and jeggings every day. i felt like it was impossible to ever wear comfortable clothes, or ever feel good in clothes, so why bother?

it started with linen. linen is very comfortable and pretty sustainable. i was amazed that i didn’t feel the urge to rip my clothes off when i wore linen. lightbulb number one.

a friend let me borrow a nooworks dress, and i went to the store and got some overalls. wow. overalls. lightbulb number two. holy shit, you can wear overalls. you know how people say “not binary or non-binary but a secret third thing.” that’s overalls.

i realized i loved the bonkers prints that nooworks had, and all of it was soft, and made ethically. it was a higher price point than i was used to, which gave me pause. but then you realize: we’re not supposed to be buying dumb clothes every other weekend. and isn’t a slightly higher price point for soft clothes that you won’t want to tear off your body worth it?

so i started my research. i made a spreadsheet. the prices can be all over the place across brands, so i made a column for prices. sizes can be all over the place too – people always ask me “where is the plus size slow fashion?” it’s there. just look at the size column. people say “isn’t it better to buy secondhand?” yeah, it is. i have many links to secondhand sources.

if you have any suggestions or additions please let me know, it is a living document.

Happy disability pride month!! Pls help a disabled muslim lesbian in the middle east (me) escape an abusive household + arranged marriage that's been fixed for later this year.

I'm making a new post bc old one has lots of notes but the donations have slowed down a lot and my situation has now become potentially time sensitive. You can read the old post or the link for more details.

Please consider donating and sharing this post! I also have made posts on instagram and twitter that you can share. Here's also a link to proof (bc for whatever reason people think I'm scamming...like I'm making this up for fun? lmao.)

I'm so so grateful to everyone who is and has been helping me, thank you so much, i appreciate each and everyone of you ❤️

5,312/10,000

We offer this ‘zine in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020. Our unsheltered relatives cannot simply “stay home if they are sick” and “constantly wash their hands” as instructed by callous politicians who, predictably, had no plans to ensure the wellbeing of our relatives.

i’m so sorry i just need to organize my reference tag so warning for long post and organization system that only makes sense to me

writing

names, dead languages, ancient cultures

99 ways to beat writers block

remember to deal with criticism

advice for writers vid

character bios

eye colors

writing prompt generators

naming things

character flaws

things to research

types of crying

rare words

injuries

format manuscript

can’t find the right word?

stop procrastinating

best apps for writers

online whiteboard

possible fanfic aus

(kind of) synonyms for said

character development worksheet

words

more words

even more words

writing resource masterpost

british vs. american english

surnames masterpost

character development chart

emotions vocabulary

things i’d put under writing references but aren’t actually specifically for writing

monsters

simple noble ranking thing

traditional japanese outfits

palm reading

palm reading 2

guns

ships (like ones on the sea not otps)

holding knives

knife blades

different kinds of knives

use for a plastic knife

fictional world generator

deterioration of the human body

movies/shows

movies for the nights you can’t sleep masterpost

version of romeo and juliet that sounds hella rad

pushing daisies

2013 movies

movie night masterpost

british tv

food

mug cookie tutorial

pastry folding 101

tomato basil pasta

mug recipes

fruit roll ups

desserts

kawaii holiday cookies

citrus gingerbread tree cookies

gingerbread stars

cookies

candy meth

apple pie in apple

pretty cakes

chocolate

pumpkin spice everything dear lord

pimp that snack

grilled banana nutella sandwich

cute food things

the science of chocolate chip cookies 

cute raspberry chocolate thing

beauty

how to cover up tattoos

game of thrones hairdos

beauty tips

homemade conditioners

diys

sugar scrub

makeup tips masterpost

spoons

face lighting? idk

burned paper nails

diy crayola lipstick

christmas tree nails

kool aid lip stain

eyeliner styles

more eyeliner style things

dry nail polish fast

health

hiv morning after pill

exercise like a superhero

period cramps

tone the lower stomach

free condoms

for sore throats

ginger tea cider

college/education/school

college survival masterpost

survive finals

college life hacks

reminder

educational websites

mit college courses

music

the best of whatever artist

british bands

arctic monkeys downloads

find new bands

make good music better

sounds

soundrown

art

shoulders

perspective

noses

paint tool sai

mouths

lots of tutorials

lips

get rid of art block

drawing lips with the help of beans

perspective thing in photoshop

adobe creative suite

typography

combining fonts

typography masterpost

fonts

more fonts

even more fonts

sewing/clothes

skirt sewing tutorials

shoe names infographic

visual coat glossary

taking measurements

visual skirt glossary

dress necklines (other guides in caption)

8 foot giant squid

diy draped vest

bra fitting

men’s suit fit with bonus tom hiddleston

make your own dress form

clothing life hacks

fix pilling

languages

swear in lots of languages

learn to read korean

why english is dumb

language of the fan

military sign language

cuss in french

nice words

communication

line (skype on steroids)

synaptop

personality things

myers briggs personality and characters

aura color

lots of personality tests

important things

how to find your dog

alternatives to leaving dogs at the pound

worst case scenarios masterpost

keys in the hand

for when you’re sad

break out of zip tie handcuffs

what to do when stopped by police

bleeding and don’t have a band aid?

vital strike points

how to tell if someone’s lying

how to tape hands for a fight

just click this

survive the apocalypse

being an adult

becoming an adult cheat sheet

balancing a checkbook

getting an apartment

buy the things

free shipping omg

eyeshadow with funny names

general diy

calm bottle/glitter jar

pretty lace windows

flower crown

cool knots

bracelet

gifts in a jar

tumblr/computer things

hella lot of backgrounds

hd space wallpapers

themes

more themes

snow code

tumblr keyboard shortcuts

deactivated theme

airplane window textures

emergency dashboard

gif tutorials

save audio posts

anon hate

idk just things

how to disappear online

body language and interrogation

cheap things to do in nyc

why people slip on ice

book about aliens invading earth and being fought off by wildlife

filipino legends/stories/etc

make yourself do the things and form good habits

different kinds of islamic head garments

fantasy/historical clothing

how the uk flag works

how to walk like a queen

logic flaws

life hacks

arts and crafts blogs

fruit charger??

helpful websites

jar won’t open life hack

find people you’ve met once

video and photo editor things

banana wins all the awards

useless websites

time wasters

life hacks again

read minds

things to remember

uncapitalize caps lock things

masterposts by other people

icanttellyoubutiknowitsmine 2014 masterpost

blacklistecl’s bad days masterpost

some tips

a masterpost of all the things

im5-official 2014 resource masterpost

abercrombier’s 2014 help post

random websites thing

things for when you’re sad

more things for when you’re sad

cute games

cute games again

again very sorry for the hella long post but maybe this’ll be useful to some of you

Tuebl.ca is my new most favoritest site. 

for people who don’t know, Tuebl.ca is essentially a FREE AND AUTHORIZED ONLINE LIBRARY WHERE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FREE .EPUB VERSIONS OF POPULAR BOOKS.

When I say authorized, I mean popular authors PUT THEIR BOOKS UP THERE FOR FREE BECAUSE THEY KNOW EBOOKS WILL GET THEM NEW FANS WHO WILL THEN GO ON TO BUY THEIR  BOOKS.

I’m talking like John Grisham. Jacqueline Carey. Stephanie Meyers. Jeffrey Eugenides. FUCKING ANNA QUINDLEN. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

that’s just the start. seriously. try it out.

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“In March 2018, Peter-Lucas Jones and the ten other staff at Te Hiku Media, a small non-profit radio station nestled just below New Zealand’s most northern tip, were in disbelief. In ten days, thanks to a competition it had started, Māori speakers across New Zealand had recorded over 300 hours of annotated audio in their mother tongue. It was enough data to build language tech for te reo Māori, the Māori language – including automatic speech recognition and speech-to-text.

The small staff of Māori language broadcasters and one engineer were about to become pioneers in Indigenous speech recognition technology. But building the tools was only half the battle. Te Hiku soon found itself fending off corporate entities trying to develop their own indigenous data sets and resisting detrimental western approaches to data sharing. Guarding their data became the priority because the only people truly interested in revitalising the Māori language were the Māori people, themselves.”

Most feminist U.S. president ever?

With President Obama, I KNOW my fave is problematic (drones, lobbyists working for WH, etc., etc.), but I believe that you would have to add up 3-5 other presidents to equal the good that he’s done for this country, especially on the topics of women and the LGBTQIA+ communities.

A LONG List Of President Obama’s Accomplishments (With Citations)

Updated! A List of 276 Accomplishments by President Obama so far… With Citations

Some great feminist Obama moments 

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