The Dow Dominion

I was struggling with choosing what aspect of this guide I would use as material for part one of my frugal food-growing guide. I wondered if I should start by explaining how to find the best price on seeds.  Seems like a reasonable place to begin.  Or maybe I should first talk about which vegetables will produce the biggest bang for the buck.  After all, we should know that information before even planting the first seeds, right? I thought about the topic for this post for a good week, unable to make a decision.  Then it finally hit me... compost. "Really?  Compost?  That's what you're starting with?  How droll!" is probably what you're thinking.  Or you're wondering what the meaning of "droll" is.  Don't worry, I had to look it up, too! Anyway, yes, I decided to center my first article of this guide around compost.  And for good reason.  Compost is the foundation that this whole guide is based around.  It's the single best soil amend

Most of us have had it happen to us at some point: You check your bank account one day, expecting to see a certain amount of money safely stashed away, but somehow you're missing an extra $35 from said account. "How can this be?  Wait a minute... a certain subscription fee was charged unexpectedly and I got overdrafted by $2.00!  Damn it, now I'm out $35 more!" Broke due to overdraft fees?  No problem! This happened to me just recently, and I almost just took the loss, chalking it up to a failure on my part to keep my finances in order. However, with the multitude of articles on the web devoted to getting fees waived, I decided to test my luck and see how much truth there is in having the bank forgive me for a careless mistake.  Surprisingly, I had no trouble at all getting that pesky overdraft fee refunded.  And the best part is, I didn't even have to leave my keyboard. Most banks these days have an online interface for customers to check up on their

It's a cold Saturday morning in October as I am writing this, and strangely I am writing an article on growing vegetables to save money.  Isn't gardening more of a spring/summer thing?  While that may be true, I love being prepared, and vegetable gardening is no exception.  Even when I plant the first seeds in the ground when the weather gets warmer, I am envisioning what I am going to plant for next year's gardening season.  I think most experienced gardeners are like that, too. I'll show you how to grow corn on the cheap! That said, this article will be a continually updated guide on how to save money on your food budget by growing your own vegetables.  This is my very first rough draft of this guide. It seems almost silly when I'm "planning to plan," but it helps me organize my thoughts.  Since I have a pretty selective topic for this guide, I am going to assume that most people reading this have at least some experience gardening, particularly

Among all the beverages available for consumption by humans, tea is the most popular drink in the world , second only to water.  While a majority of that tea is generally black tea--made from the fermented leaves of the Camellia sinensis bush--an increasing amount of people are trying out green tea.  Green tea is also made out of the leaves of the Camellia sinensis bush, but the leaves are only dried and heated, not fermented.  It has a relatively similar flavor, it comes from the same plant, it is just as easy to prepare, and it may have benefits that are not realized from drinking black tea. Camellia sinensis Although I have heard purported positive health effects from drinking green tea from friends, family, co-workers, television ads and fitness/nutritional websites, I decided to take a look at the research myself to see what science has to say about it.  Despite many trials finding little to no effect, there are quite a few studies showing very real positive benefits from

The meager amount of people following this blog might know I am an avid weight lifting fan.  There's plenty of reasons I could list for why weight lifting is so great, but the list of references backing it up are too numerous too count, and requires multiple articles just to cover the basics. Today, I want to briefly touch on something a bit more specific: The concept of being a weight lifter while also being a vegetarian.  This is a goal I am currently in the process of testing out for myself, which is going pretty well, actually.  What enticed me, an avid meat-eater, to try out vegetarianism, you ask?  There are multiple reasons, but I have to admit that the one thing that motivated to try it was a TED talk I watched before work one day on YouTube: In the video, Mr. Knox isn't too specific about any research, but he does talk about his own personal experience about going almost completely vegetarian.  He claims his cholesterol dropped considerably, he lost 35 lbs. and

It's been quite some time since I have written a post for this blog.  Over a year, in fact.  In that period of time, my interests seem to naturally rotate from one to another in a cycle loosely based on the seasons. In the winter, I tend to become more interested in personal finance, as it is obviously too cold to grow food from plants (at least here in Asheville).  The temperatures also demotivate me from weight lifting, as I train in my unheated outdoor garage. When winter is nearly over, and spring is on the horizon, gardening starts becoming my main focus during this time period.  A new year of working and experimenting with different plants and different growing conditions dominates my thoughts as I envision the fruits of my labor in the coming months. As the heat of summer hits, my interest in physical fitness--weight lifting, to be more specific--reaches an all time high.  Since growing up in hot and muggy Florida, my body seems to naturally enjoy higher temperatures f