The Three Sisters

August 31, 2007

...next spring we were late getting around to planting our parkway vegetable garden. To review, the parkway is that space between the sidewalk and the street that belongs to the city but is the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain. The city, of course, wants us all to plant a lawn so that fat people can easily plop out of their Escalades unimpeded. We decided to grow food instead and despite the presence of many building inspectors reviewing...

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Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

Mr. Homegrown

April 30, 2007

Gardening

10 Comments

...m by the late Dr. David Fairchild in his well-loved book, The World Was My Garden. He there tells of its fruiting “enormously” in the garden of his home, “In The Woods”, in Maryland, and of the cook’s putting up over a hundred jars of what he called “Inca Conserve” which “met with universal favor.” Our package of Physalis pruinosa was priced at a staggering $3.99–a lot considering the package only contained 12 seeds. You can be certain that we’ll...

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Siphon Your Bathwater

Mr. Homegrown

December 8, 2006

Water Conservation

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...ur finger over one end and pass it to an accomplice waiting outside in the garden. As long as your bathtub is higher than the part of your garden being watered, you will have created a siphon and the water will drain out of the tub. Now if this sounds like a pain in the ass, or if you have no accomplices there is (or perhaps was as the website does not seem to be working) a siphon device on the market for just this purpose. Called the “Ban Beater”...

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Showers to Flowers

Mr. Homegrown

December 11, 2006

Water Conservation

1 Comment

...solutions is simply rerouting your shower straight out a pipe and into the garden. Here’s how to do it: 1. Confirm that your shower is higher than the point you are watering. The minimum fall for waste pipes is 1/4 inch per foot — any less and you’ll risk a backup. 2. Cut the waste line from your shower, making sure that you are cutting the pipe before the point it meets up with anything coming out of the toilet. Remember you don’t want blackwater...

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Leaf Litter

Mr. Homegrown

December 12, 2006

Permaculture

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...t this way, Simply relinquishing a need for “order” and “tidiness” in your garden will make a huge difference. . Order and tidiness by definition reduce structural diversity in ecosystems. Structural diversity provides shelter for many animals for many purposes. In short, when it comes to fall leaf raking, just say no, be a slob and be proud of it. The mulch created by leaf litter serves multiple purposes. All those fallen leaves provide shelter f...

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