Jill-of-all-Trades

Hardware and how-to

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The other day, a friend said to me, “I know this might sound silly, but could you teach me how to attach two boards together?” She wants to build a bookshelf eventually, but needs to start at the beginning. I started to answer quickly and then stopped, recognizing that it wasn’t a silly question at all and I needed to think through how I would teach what exactly goes into attaching one board to another. I can do it without thinking on my own, but I’m fluent in hardware. Her question asked me to go back to the nuts and bolts of building.

Great Outdoors

Gardening for the plants

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“Companion planting” is a good way to think about relationships in the kitchen garden. This is a method of gardening where plants are situated alongside one another for mutual benefit: tomatoes and basil, marigolds and squash, cabbage and thyme, cucumbers and radishes for a few. Each relationship offers something different, whether it’s pest control or shading the soil, attracting pollinators or improving soil fertility.