Search Results for: label/garden design

553 results

The Squirrel Menace

Mr. Homegrown
Pests
29 Comments
In our garden squirrels are a serious problem. Their worst offense is grabbing avocados off our tree, taking a few small bites and then dropping them on the ground for our Doberman to finish off. This year only five avocados made it into the kitchen. Today’s New York Times has just about the only effective solution. Anyone for squirrel tacos with guacamole? “With literally millions of squirrels rampaging throughout England, Scotland...

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The Barrier Method

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
6 Comments
...rticularly problem-prone situations. Nowadays protection is standard for every bed we plant, for our seed starting boxes, and often for new perennials in the ground. The result is peace of mind, better results…and fewer gardening meltdowns from Erik (Squash Baby excepted). We’ve written about all this before in various posts, but here’s some photos to give you an overview of some of the possibilities: Our seedling trays ar...

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Purple Sicilian Cauliflower

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests, Vegetable Gardening
3 Comments
The Homegrown Revolution compound’s purple Sicilian cauliflower (Cavolfiore di Sicilia Violetto from Seeds from Italy) from our illegal parkway garden is now ready for the table after four months since planting from seed. Cauliflower needs some attention; it needs to be kept moist and it’s prone to aphids, but the little buggers can be blasted off with a hose fairly easily. While the plant takes up a lot of room and doesn’t yi...

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Vegetable Gardening Series Starts This Weekend!

Mr. Homegrown
Events
RLeave a comment
We’re teaching a three part series on vegetable gardening at the Hutington Library and Gardens starting this Saturday and there’s still some room in the class. In the course of this hands-on series we’ll reveal the secret to vegetable gardening: it’s all about the soil! To that end we’ll show you how to build a compost pile, how to interpret a soil report, how to amend the soil, how to set up a drip irrigation syst...

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Saturday Linkages: Cheapskates and Controversy!

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
5 Comments
... … Controversy Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/is_michael_pollan_a_sexist_pig/ … In Defense of Michael Pollan (Or, How Sexism Allegations Boost Web Traffic) http://huff.to/16ougcC  When Master Gardeners Break the Rule and say they’re Master Gardeners | Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2013/04/when-master-gardeners-break-the-rules-and-say-theyre-master-gardeners.html … Containers make lousy houses: http://lloydkah...

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In August, Way Too Much Squash

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes, Vegetable Gardening
21 Comments
...e awkwardly named Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash. It’s an open pollinated heirloom variety named as an “All-America Selection” in 1938 (AAS is kind of like a dog show for seeds run by the National Garden Bureau). We grew our EPS from Botanical Interests seeds we got at our local nusery. Our EPS squash has lived up to its name, having grown rapidly, producing tasty summer squash with a zucchini-like flavor and consiste...

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Bantam Returns

Homegrown Neighbor
Animals, Chickens
8 Comments
Homegrown Neighbor here: I’ve been busy in the garden and letting the neighbors focus on their book, so I haven’t been blogging in a while. But today something very special happened that I have to share with you, dear readers. My bantam chicken, Debbie, the lighter colored chicken in the photo, disappeared last week. She simply didn’t come in at chicken bed time. This is very unusual. The chickens usually all line up and go...

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Saturday Linkages: Black Soldier Flys, DIY Power Bars and CDFA Thugs are Killing Bees Again

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
3 Comments
DIY How to Build a DIY Black Soldier Fly Composter (Video) : TreeHugger http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/how-build-diy-black-soldier-fly-composter-video.html … Are You A Chicago Gardener? Take This Survey http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/2013/02/are-you-chicago-gardener-take-this.html#.UTo_UPrAm4A.twitter … My Solar Adventures- DIY solar and arduino projects: How to : DIY Solar Backpack with Solar Mobile phon… http://mysolara...

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Eat Your Pests

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
13 Comments
Grubs anyone? Responding to our anti-squirrel post a few days ago Root Simple reader Chile pointed to a post on the her blog “Pests . . . and how to eat them“. She makes the excellent point that most of our dreaded garden pests, including insects are edible. Now if I could only overcome my squeamishness about eating insects. I had to deal with lots of wax moth larvae this week and remembered that in parts of Asia they are s...

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