This unit is in the garage on the lower level. It keeps the garage warm and flows heat up the steps. 40F outside cost about $6 a day, when under 20 outside it counts about $10 a day.

How was your week. Did you meet your goals?

For the folks in US climate zone 7 - 3, what do you use for heat when the power goes out?

1️⃣ Post 4 GIFs in the same post that indicate: 1. Where are you from? 2. What's your favorite food? 3. What is your business? 4. What do you love to do? Respond back to at least 3 people guessing their answers. I'll pin the winner Sunday.

Weeds: Walking Alongside Nature A weed is simply a plant growing where we, as gardeners, do not want it. That definition alone changes how we see the land. When I first started my Oasis, I stopped mowing my front yard. The neighbors were not excited about my new relationship with soil. 🙂 But I did it intentionally, for two reasons. First, I wanted to observe what was actually growing in a lawn that had been mowed for years after the house was built. Once I stopped mowing, the space transformed into a forager’s dream. Medicinal herb after medicinal herb emerged. Plants long dismissed as weeds were suddenly offering nourishment and healing. What had been labeled an unkempt lawn became a source of health, simply because I allowed nature to grow what it knew how to grow. There’s something important here: nature often provides what we need when we need it. For most of human history, we were foragers, eating what the land offered in that place and time. Second, I wanted to move the land toward food production. The soil was solid clay, especially after rain, with almost no water infiltration. Years of mowing had kept the plants in a constant state of stress, always replacing green growth for survival, and never given time to build deep roots. Shallow roots meant compacted soil and lifeless ground. When I allowed the plants to grow fully, their roots responded by reaching deep into the clay. This is nature’s way of healing compacted soil. Deep roots fracture clay, create channels for air and water, and begin the slow transition from mineral heavy ground toward living soil. At the end of the season, after harvest, I cut the growth low, covered the area with cardboard, and added mulch to prepare the ground to move further along in soil succession toward a forest floor type system. Nature always wants to move land toward becoming a forest. That’s the default trajectory. The plants we choose to grow every year simply need to align with different stages along that path. In year two, I still won’t plant my final crops. Instead, I’ll continue growing deep rooted plants although this time ones more socially acceptable to the neighbors. This season, I’ll plant a yard of sunflowers, adding color and joy while still serving nature’s goal of converting clay into healthy soil. Alongside and under the sunflower canopy, I’ll plant daikon radishes and mangel beets, for both myself and the chickens, along with chicory and other deep-rooted plants. Each chop-and-drop cycle will protect the soil surface with foliage, feeds, decomposition, leaves above ground as the roots die back underground adding channels of organic matter, energy and housing for soil life. This system will steadily transform high nutrient clay into a humic smorgasbord, ultimately a living ecosystem. This is what it means to walk alongside nature. Ask: What does nature want here? Give it more of that. And nature will give you more of what you want.