THE MAGAZINE FOR COOPERATIVE MEMBERS
VOLUME 74 • NUMBER 3
(ISSN 0047-486X, USPS 316-240)
Read in more than 600,000 homes and businesses and published monthly except in December by
The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc. 808 Knox Abbott Drive Cayce, SC 29033
Tel: (803) 926-3175
Fax: (803) 796-6064
Email: [email protected]
EDITOR
Keith Phillips
Tel: (803) 739-3040
Email: [email protected]
FIELD EDITORS
Walter Allread, Josh Crotzer
PUBLICATION COORDINATOR
Travis Ward
ART DIRECTOR
Sharri Harris Wolfgang
DESIGNER
Susan Collins
PRODUCTION
Andrew Chapman
WEB EDITOR
Chase Toler
COPY EDITORS
Trevor Bauknight, Jennifer Jas
CONTRIBUTORS
April Coker Blake, Mike Couick,
Andrew Haworth, Tim Hanson, Jan A. Igoe, Patrick Keegan, David Novak,
Sydney Patterson, Belinda Smith-Sullivan, Chase Smoak, Brad Thiessen,
Amy Trainum, Paul Wesslund
PUBLISHER
Lou Green
ADVERTISING
Mary Watts
Tel: (803) 739-5074 Email: [email protected]
NATIONAL REPRESENTATION
American MainStreet Publications Tel: (800) 626-1181
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©COPYRIGHT 2020. The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc. No portion of
South Carolina Living may be reproduced without permission of the Editor.
SOUTH CAROLINA LIVING is brought to you by your member-owned, taxpaying, not-for-profifit electric cooperative to inform you about your cooperative, wise energy use and the faces and places that identify the Palmetto State. Electric cooperatives are South Carolina’s—and America’s—largest utility network.
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Member of the AMP network reaching more than 9 million homes and businesses
    2 0 2 0 | march 16 Keeping it green
  With more than 2,100 acres of forests, fifields, lakes and trails, Fort Mill’s iconic Anne Springs Close Greenway holds urban sprawl at bay.
22 Tasty homegrown tomatoes
Step up to the challenge of growing better-tasting tomatoes this season with expert advice from Clemson University Extension Agent Chase Smoak.
4 CO-OP NEWS
Updates from your cooperative
6 AGENDA
Learn how the race to build better batteries for electric vehicles may benefifit home electricity consumers.
10 DIALOGUE
Questioning deregulation
Lawmakers will need to ask some hard questions before attempting to alter South Carolina’s electricity market.
12 ENERGY Q&A
Your effiffifficiency upgrades checklist
Follow this six-step checklist if you plan to make effiffifficiency improvements to your home this spring.
14 SMART CHOICE
Lawn and order
Put your best gardening foot forward this season with electric lawn and garden tools.
21 STORIES
Garden guru
Spend some time with Amanda McNulty, host of SCETV’s Making It Grow.
28 RECIPE
A fantastic French dinner
Good news: Chef Belinda Smith-Sullivan’s latest recipes prove French cooking is not as diffiffifficult or as complicated as you might think.
30 TRAVELS
Mystery at the museum
The game is afoot at the S.C. State Museum’s new International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes.
34 MARKETPLACE
36 CALENDAR
38 HUMOR ME
Smash now and forever hold your peace
According to our humor columnist, paying good money to bludgeon inanimate objects with a sledgehammer is all the rage.
22
    FROM TOP: AMY TRAINUM; DAVID CLARK; GINA MOORE
Tasty
tomatoes
Tips to perish pests, fight fungus, root out rot and green up your thumb
Our gardening tips can help you harvest a bumper crop of the tastiest tomatoes you’ve ever tried. Illustration by David Clark.
 SC SCENE
The antidote
to urban sprawl SC RECIPE
French cooking made easy
 16
 28
LAWN & GARDEN ISSUE
 GLIASWRSDUNE&N
MARCH 2020