A lot of people try gardening by putting seeds in the ground and waiting. When nothing comes up, or plants barely grow, they chalk it up to being bad at gardening or not having a green thumb. In reality, their soil probably just doesn’t have the nutrients plants need. Soil testing is your chief weapon in taking the mystery out of gardening. Professional soil tests are best, but they can be expensive, hard to read, and it takes time to get results. Rapitest soil test kits are readily availab

Over a year ago, we told you how to disinfect packages from COVID-19. In the interim, some doctors and scientists became aghast that people were doing this. The CDC offered conflicted and confusing advice, which we happily fact checked, and the CDC withdrew. Many of you are still following our package disinfection advice. Now the CDC has once again updated its information about COVID-19 surface transmission, this time with an actual figure of what they mean when they say that surface transmis

Let's say you find yourself needing to grow food quickly, but you don't have a lot of tools to work with, and your soil is either devoid of nutrients or is hard to work. Perhaps the most efficient way to get started is with a simple mound, which survival gardener David the Good calls a "melon pit." Melon pits are easy and quick to make, and they can produce a lot of food. They’re a great complement to raised beds, because you can add them to spots where you don’t yet have a raised bed or

It’s a classic children’s science experiment: insert a nail and a penny into a potato and use the slight bit of voltage produced to power a small clock or some other low-power gadget. Those of us of a certain age may remember MacGyver pulling off a similar trick. When I was a kid, I would put a nail and a penny in an apple and rub a headphone plug along them to make static noises. Recently, someone shared an article in one of my prepping groups claiming that boiled potatoes can power a li

Here's the top bow choices from survival experts and tips on what to look for when buying these versatile tools.