Top Gardening and Plant Apps

We love our technology! 
Both Keri and I are hard-core Apple users and enjoy the pomp, circumstance and gadgetry involved! 
But we also love the simpler life like gardening, farming and Chickenry. (Yes, that is now a word)

So to help all you wonderful peeps out there who also love both sides of being a Techie Outdoorsman, these Apps are for you!

Top Herb, Gardening and Plant Identification Apps

About Herbs
$ - Free
Memorial Sloan Kettering Center
This App gives you images, common and Latin names of all edible plants. Its extremely easy to use, and list it all alphabetically. More than 200 plants to choose from, this is the most integrative app I've ever used.

Pork Loin Roast with Juniper Berries

Pork Loin Roast with Juniper Berries

  
This pork roast recipe is decadent, luscious, and makes the best reduction deglazing I’ve ever tasted! If you feel like having a “fancier” dinner, this is the roast for you!

Ingredients

• 1 pork loin roast (2 kg)
• 1/2 cup Olive oil
  

Rustic Chicken Soup Recipe

 

For my family, having a roasted chicken dinner somewhat resembles that of a Viking hoard feast .... along with the aftermath.  The carcass left over doesn't have much left on it, but you would be surprised to know it will still produce a full meal!

From one 5 - 7 lb chicken you can produce as much as a full gallon of soup.

NOTE: Put this recipe on the stove at 12 noon if you wish to have it for dinner that day. Soup takes TIME. You will be very dissapointed at the flavour and result if you put this one an hour before you're wanting it served.

Who's Your Farmer? Hop Compost is Organic Compost GOLD!

We go visit farmers, and ask 10 questions, and then make a video ...

We begin our "Who's Your Farmer?" series with a different kind of farmer ... a "garbage" farmer. 
Well, to be fair, it's not conventional garbage, or compost, we're talking about. This is organic "craft compost", and it's {going to be} the best thing you can use in your garden or farm.

Keri and I visited Hop Compost in Calgary, AB, and spoke with Kevin Davies, the founder.

Watch the YouTube video interview with Kevin - and prepare yourself - you will learn things about compost, compost fertilizer, and conventional fertilizer you haven't heard before! 
The amazing process which Kevin and the team at Hop Compost have devised is the stuff of legends. In fact, we believe that hop compost is at the forefront of a new organic compost and fertilizer era.

A FEW FACTS

• Since 2015, their debut year, Hop Compost has diverted 2,029,000 pounds of waste from local landfills. This has saved over 5,200,000 pounds of emissions, 65,000 cubic feet of land, and 507,000 liters of water.

• HOP compost has 7.6 times the nutrient value compared to conventional compost.

• Using a closed loop of organic farmers and vendors ensures Hop Compost's top quality 

• Grow Calgary - the largest urban farm in Canada - by using Hop Compost announced their crop yields are rising enough to be able to donate an additional 1125 meals to food banks 
  

  

Canada's large cities will soon run out of landfill space:

• Calgary has 18 years left

• Vancouver has 4 years left

• Toronto has 0 years -a they transport their garbage to Michigan

• 1/3 of most landfills are comprised of COMPOSTABLE material

Conventional FERTILIZER

•  Is poisonous to animals and humans

• Has been proven to be toxic atmospherically*

• Areas which use high amounts of conventional chemical fertilizer have an increase in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma & brain cancer*

• Heavy use of chemical fertilizer pollutes the air much like smoking*

*Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma stats: American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Brain cancer stats: Boston University, School of Public Health

".. I would say organic is possible...a lot of people have been making the same purchase decisions that they’ve just inherited through generations. It seems like a natural move to go into a green center and buy a chemical fertilizer .."

Please watch the video and read the transcribed interview below.

MFRFI: What do you do here at Hop Compost?

Kevin: