Slice of Life Apple Peeler-Corer-Slicer $25 amazon.com/gp/product/ B0000DE2SS/

· Peeling and cutting up the apples was always the barrier to entry for me when I considered making an apple pie (especially since one is never enough) — until I discovered a curious device called an apple peeler-corer-slicer. A Wallace and Gromit-style device if ever you saw one, but it works like a charm.

Just stick a firm apple onto the triple spikes, turn the hand crank a half dozen times, and the apple is cored, peeled, and neatly sliced in a 1-inch-wide spiral, with a longer spiral of peel spilling over the side of the counter (hopefully into a bucket or bowl artfully placed below, but if not, onto the floor). Make a single downward cut with a knife, and you have a set of neat rounds perfect for pie.

Those neat rounds inspired another great apple pie innovation in our house. The holes in the middle were so tempting that I decided one day to drop in raspberries. A perfect variation on the traditional apple pie.

Another tip: Either use sweet apples like Fujis and use no sugar, or use sour apples like Granny Smiths and sugar lightly. Most American apple pies are way too sweet. My ideal apple pie is tart.

Pay Dirt LaMotte Soil Testing Kit $60 territorial-seed.com

Wonder why your tomatoes aren’t taking off? Soil Test kits allow you to learn more about how your garden grows. This particular kit lets you test soil samples for concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and soil pH. Once you have the test results, you will know how to amend the soil, which can improve growing conditions for your plants.

LaMotte kits are widely available in slightly different configurations, but I got mine online from Territorial Seed Company. The kit includes several informative booklets on soil science.

—Dale Dougherty

Matthew Russell tries hard to live life as a renaissance man.

Dave Prochnow writes about his projects at pco2go.com.

Joseph Pasquini is an avid amateur radio operator as well as a shortwave and scanner listener.

Ross Orr keeps the analog alive in Ann Arbor, Mich.

—Tim O’Reilly

Tim O’Reilly is founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Ty Nowotny is a full third of the triumvirate of havoc-wreaking engineering interns at the MAKE Lab.

Saul Griffith works with the power nerds at Squid Labs.

Rob Bullington is the marketing and events coordinator for MAKE.

Have you used something worth keeping in your toolbox? Let us know at toolbox@makezine.com.