xylem

Planting the garden is well underway, we added a bunch of new beds this year. We've been building tomato cages out of last year's sunflower stalks, you can see a partially constructed one on the right. The cucumbers in the center will get something more conventional with metal stakes and netting. I also just acquired a spicebush, which I'm very excited to put in the ground! Just gotta figure out the right location.

My seed order arrived last week, planning to start at least the onions soon!

This solar powered electric cooker operates on a kind of similar principle (store up heat to cook food using minimal continuous energy input), and is a good example of one way to construct the insulation - https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2025/10/how-to-build-a-solar-powered-electric-oven/

Pests and diseases are another thing to be careful of. I've ended up with a pretty bad spider mite infestation after replanting some grocery store lettuce. Like any new houseplant, consider keeping it isolated for a while!

I don't think the intent or messaging should be to shame people for their choices in buying ultra processed convenience foods - because the real problem is that they don't have the choice. Systemic factors have made whole, locally produced, healthy foods inaccessible for too many people - food deserts and the consolidation of the agricultural and food production sectors, and the fact that people juggling multiple jobs and childcare just don't have the time to prepare meals from scratch.

Systemic problems require collective solutions, either from government or from direct organizing. But the first step is to identify the problem and research the harms that UPF and long supply chains cause.

If you're comfortable on the command line, exiftool is pretty flexible and can likely do what you want

This is great, and it doesn't have to be as complicated to get started. Here's my setup -

• navidrome running in docker on my server (a NUC in the basement, with a copy of the library)
• tailscale to access the server from outside my home network (I run headscale, a self-hosted coordination server on a VPS, but the free company hosted default would be fine)
• Ultrasonic on my phone (I like the ability to "pin" songs or albums to keep offline)
• local copy of the library on my desktop which I listen to with Quod Libet

I cancelled my Spotify membership back in April and have been buying on average an album a month, either Bandcamp or directly from artists if possible. Bandcamp is also decent for discovering new artists, and I've also gone old-school and sought out music critic websites that cover the genres I like.

This is cool, and what great timing - I just spent the last half hour sewing up the seam inside the ear cups of my QC35s. The fake leather is flaking as well so I'll definitely try something like this in the future, probably with fabric (maybe a 4-way stretch cotton knit, athletic fabric probably a good choice)

I was also thinking about crocheting a cover for the top band.

Currently enjoying a salad of overwintered kale and cabbage, beet greens from thinning the sprouts, a couple radishes, and snap peas, with sunflower seeds and fresh dill sprinkled on top. I just added grocery store cucumber and bell pepper, because I was behind on planting those. This is what we do it for!

The indieweb / smallweb community has some tutorials, like this one - https://32bit.cafe/cyowebsite/

I recently visited The Garden In the Woods, near Framingham, MA - it's a combination botanical garden and native plant store. Wonderful place, I highly recommend it to anyone in the area. I came home with a Serviceberry bush that I planted where one of the hedge/tree conifer things on the edge of my yard had died.

In the annual garden my flour corn is coming up - planted it a bit late, so hopefully it'll have enough time. I'm a little behind on everything except the peas this year, tbh, but it's nice to see things finally start to take off.

Sounds like the zipper is too long - a friend was just telling me about this pitfall since I'm planning to make a pair of pants soon.

I don't have any first-hand experience, but this YouTube channel has some great videos about tailoring jeans. Not exactly your problem, but might at least help you understand the construction - https://youtu.be/AiYmCpDKmqk

This may also help - https://youtu.be/RBN10DxjW14