(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) Where do I start if I’m new? Okay, this all sounds great but maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed. Where do you start if you are starting from scratch? Or maybe you have a large garden but aren’t sure you want to convert the whole thing over to this approach. I’m going to give you my method for establishing a garden bed on new ground, which I have used successfully in multiple beds on my property including my entire greenhouse. Establishing a New Garden Bed Mark out your bed in a location that gets…

The Shooters Global SG Pulse Pro is an impressive all-in-one gadget, offering you a timer, DOPE (data on previous engagements) cards, a level and a stability tracker in one aluminum, water-resistant body with multiple mounting options. The LCD display indicates actual numbers, but bright LED lights quickly indicate whether you’re on target or angled too far in one axis or another—significantly simplifying shot assessment. It’s highly customizable for audio alerts, cant tolerance and LED brightness. Switch between DOPE cards for stages, including wind speed and direction, plus target distance, elevation, etc. The app also lets you learn from each shot…

The Strike Eagle has been a cornerstone of Vortex’s affordable line of low-power variable optics (LPVO) for modern sporting rifles. Previously offered in 1-6X and 1-8X variants, new for 2026, Vortex is introducing the Strike Eagle 1-10X 24 mm FFP riflescope.     The new Strike Eagle 1-10X is an update of Vortex’s classic affordable LPVO. LPVO scopes give the user the ability to quickly switch from close to long-range targets. The Strike Eagle goes from a 1X magnification, for use like a red dot, to 10X and has a removable throw lever for quick changes and fast-focus eyepiece. It uses…

Nearly 90 years ago, the Battle of Shanghai introduced the world to the horrifying brutality of modern urban combat. Prior to the hellscape of Stalingrad, the fighting in Shanghai showcased man’s inhumanity to man on a grand scale within China’s largest and most modern city, years before World War II. By the time the Battle of Shanghai was over, nearly 200,000 Chinese were killed or wounded, along with almost 50,000 Japanese. Most modern weapons were used in the battle, including poison gas, deployed by the Japanese 13 times by their own admission. The Second Sino-Japanese War began with the Japanese…

(Continued from Part 2.) The microbes in the soil are master mineral miners using various acids, such as carbonic acid, to break down minerals into soluble forms that are bioavailable to the plants. The plants in turn exude sugars to feed and power the microbes during the mining operation. If you live east of the Mississippi or in commercial agricultural areas where we’ve been unsustainably exploiting the soil nutrients for decades or even centuries, there is a pretty good chance your soil is deficient in micronutrients, especially anion molecules like boron, sulfur, and molybdenum that tend to leach from the…

March 21, 717: The Battle of Vincy. This was a pivotal engagement in the Frankish civil wars of 715–718. The battle was fought near Cambrai (modern Les Rues-des-Vignes) between Austrasian forces led by Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and the Neustrian army under King Chilperic II and Mayor Ragenfrid. Martel’s forces routed the Neustrians, pursuing the defeated king and his ally to Paris, which crippled Neustrian opposition and enabled Austrasia to reassert dominance over the divided Frankish realms. This victory underscored the declining authority of Merovingian kings amid rising mayoral power, paving the way for Martel’s consolidation of northern Francia…

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On March 20, 1800, Italian chemist and physicist Alessandro Volta reported his invention of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London. — March 20th is also the birthday of Mel Tappan. (Born 1933, died 1980.) His perennially popular survivalist books Survival Guns and Tappan on Survival have a well-deserved following. I designated March 20th National Survivalism Day, in his honor. It is also apropos that National Survivalism Day falls in March–one of the months that both Northern Europeans and Native Americans refer to as The Starving Season–when stored food runs low,…

Unreliable rifles are the worst. Whether it’s a bolt-action or semi-auto, a rifle that doesn’t load cartridges smoothly and quickly can put a real damper on a trip to the range or the field. Most hunters point the finger at some component of the firearm itself, but the real culprit is probably something much simpler and easier to fix: the magazine.Whenever someone tells me about an unreliable rifle, the magazine is always the first thing I recommend changing. Eight times out of 10, that’s the real problem: the feed lips have cracked, the spring has worn out, or the follower…

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