Straw Bale Garden Update: Success!

July 15, 2013

...input of outside resources in the form of straw and fertilizer, straw bale gardening is a great solution for beginning gardeners or for those cursed with bad soil. And the skunks that have decimated my previous vegetable gardens are unable to get up on the bales. I’m considering trying another straw bale garden during our winter season. And I’m also pondering building boxes to put the bales in to make the garden look a bit neater. Compare the stra...

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Our Disastrous Summer Garden

Mr. Homegrown

September 15, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

37 Comments

...omegranate). The drought and an extreme heat wave pushed everything in the garden to the edge–and a few over the edge: in the last month we abruptly lost some garden stalwarts, including a rosemary bush and a culinary sage. Despite all these disasters, I came back from the Heirloom Expo with some ideas: Spend a little less time on Facebook and a little more time in the garden. Come up with better raccoon fortifications. Take out stone fruit that i...

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When it’s time to remove a tree

Mrs. Homegrown

October 22, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening

11 Comments

...e made your decision, whether the plant is healthy or ill, go out into the garden and have a talk, both with the garden as a whole and with the individual plant or plants you are going to remove. (You may feel silly doing this, but you know, KonMari would have you do this with your socks and old mobile phones and IMHO it’s a heck of a lot less silly to do this with plants than with your household clutter.) Speak from your heart. Don’t be embarrass...

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Help Plant a Garden — and Help a Local Eagle Scout

Mr. Homegrown

June 23, 2016

Events

...n (exuberant) team of young scouts and to help get another section of food gardens built. Start time is 9am, and we’ll continue all day until it’s done. Bring your own garden gloves. If you’d like to help with assembling benches, bring your own toolbox. Although much of the project site is in the shade, we recommend sun hats / sun protection. The Garden is at 6700 West 83rd in Westchester – Los Angeles 90045. Please RSVP if you can come. If you ca...

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Designing the World’s Most Pretentious Garden Shed

Mr. Homegrown

September 13, 2016

Design, Gardening

11 Comments

...Pinterest board to gather more notions, mostly from Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden, Little Sparta: The garden shed design I settled on is a kind of mashup of Ian Hamilton Finlay and the front of an “airplane” bungalow (a common type of house in our neighborhood). Next it was time to put the idea into Sketchup. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sketchup rocks. All DIYers should know how to use it. With Sketchup I was able to come up with a...

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