Is Gardening Cheaper?

 

With food costs rising, many people are contemplating starting a garden. This makes sense, since human beings have been growing their own food for thousands of years. The stuff just comes out of the ground and literally grows on trees. Gardening offers a lot of benefits: It can be spiritually and emotionally fulfilling, improves the look of your property, and provides delicious sustenance. The potential to save money doesn’t hurt, either.

At first blush, this might seem like an obvious win: Once you get a tomato plant going, for example, you get free tomatoes as opposed to having to buy them all the time like a sucker. But gardens have hidden costs, and not all crops are the same in terms of cost-effectiveness. Can you really save money by growing your own food? The answer is yes, but you have to be thoughtful about it.

Do some garden math
Once again, your high school algebra teacher wins. This is yet another moment in your life where you will use math.

The starting point is your initial investment. The good news here is that gardens are relatively cheap. A few years ago, the National Gardening Association conducted a costs survey and concluded that most home gardens required about $70 in initial investment. That money goes toward seeds, soil and/or fertilizer, cages, covers, water, tools, and fences, if those are necessary. 

The better news is that you can expect an annual return of about $600 and moving forward, seeds are incredibly cheap compared to grown fruits and veggies in the grocery. Tomatoes on the vine cost about $2 a pound, but a packet of seeds will be about $4 and each plant that grows is capable of yielding anywhere from eight to 30 pounds of tomatoes (though there’s no guarantee you’ll get that much, of course).  READ MORE...

Sound More Emotionally Intelligent

Exhibiting emotional intelligence is more important than ever in the workplace. We are in the midst of the Great Resignation, and people are increasingly less likely to stick with jobs where they do not feel seen, heard, or valued. 

Employees want to work with and for people who exhibit high degrees of emotional intelligence—teammates and managers who project leadership along with self-awareness, empathy, and humility.

The cornerstone of emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, evaluate, interpret, and manage emotions—both your own and those of others—and use those insights to drive positive action. 

This sensibility can improve everything from communication and personal relationships to effectiveness and job satisfaction. Here are some key phrases that are used by emotionally intelligent leaders.

“I’m listening” / “I hear you”

Never underestimate the power of telling someone you’re listening. We’ve all been on the receiving end of barely-made eye contact or lukewarm nodding while we’re mid-sentence with another person. 

How much more validated and valued would we feel if they confirmed we have their undivided attention with some eye contact and a simple “I’m listening”?  READ MORE...

Solar Flares Hitting Earth

In the Tom Hanks movie Finch, a massive solar flare destroys the ozone layer, annihilating almost all life on Earth (and leading to the invention of annoying robots). While a mass coronal ejection really could hit Earth at any time—a sun-like star 100 light years away called EK Draconis literally just launched one of these things—the good news is that even the worst solar storm probably wouldn’t be as terrible as Finch is (as a movie). The bad news: While it wouldn’t be “building annoying robots” bad, a coronal ejection could still be pretty awful.

Short of destroying the sun, there’s nothing humans can do to prevent solar flares—but you can still know what to expect, and prepare accordingly.

The Coronal Mass Ejection: A visually stunning catastrophe
According to NASA, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are “large clouds of solar plasma and embedded magnetic fields released into space after a solar eruption.” If the Earth happens to be in the path of one of these ejections, and the ejection is powerful enough, things could get very crazy, very quickly.

The charged particles from the sun entering Earth’s magnetic field would cause geomagnetic storms, lighting up the sky with a brilliant aurora borealis that would be visible all over the Earth. Beautiful, for sure. But massively disruptive to our power system.

How bad could it get?
In 1859, the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded hit Earth. The Carrington Event lit up the sky so brightly that people thought dawn had come. The “Northern Lights” were visible as far south as Cuba, and the nascent telegraph system went down, with telegraph operators reporting being shocked by their machines, or being able to still send messages, even though their power supplies were disconnected.  READ MORE...