Search Results for: label/gardening

221 results

Free Preparedness E-Books

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness, Resources
10 Comments
...t it’s entertaining. And if you have any other favorite free e-book sources please leave a link in the comments. At some point I’ll direct the Root Simple staff to add these and more to our resource page. Food and Gardening Bulk Sprouter Bread Without an Oven B uilding Soils for Better Crops Colorado State University–Drying Vegetables Collecting, Cutting and Handling Potato Seed Everything Under The Sun: Food Storage for the So...

Continue reading…

USDA Zone Based Veggie Planting Schedule

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
20 Comments
Knowing when to plant vegetables is one of the big keys to edible gardening success. Unfortunately, many gardening books, websites and the back of seed packages assume you’re in a place with easily delineated seasons. What about those of us in Alaska, Southern California, Texas, Florida or Arizona? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a web-based vegetable planting calendar based on zip codes? While it’s not down to the zip code level,...

Continue reading…

Sunset Magazine’s Take on Zones

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
13 Comments
A Sunset Magazine zone map Yesterday we posted a USDA zone based vegetable gardening planting guide. But the problem with USDA zones, as many readers pointed out, is that they aren’t specific enough. For instance, all of the city of Los Angeles is in USDA zone 10, but the difference between where we live and the coast is significant. This is where Sunset Magazine’s more detailed zones maps come in handy. Sunset has divided t...

Continue reading…

Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
1 Comment
...e High Line park, an abandoned elevated railway turned into a park in New York City. Noel Kingsbury is a gardener and writer who has been the primary promoter of Oudolf’s work and what has come to be called naturalistic gardening or the “new style.” It’s an approach that’s more complex than it might seem at first glance. Oudolf walks a fine line between the public’s desire for “nature” and the untid...

Continue reading…

Polyculture

Mr. Homegrown
Permaculture
11 Comments
...Okay, you want specifics? Here is an example of a professional polyculture bed out of Gaia’s Garden, one which creates salads, cabbages, and beans. It is written for people who live places with cold winters (as are most gardening books, alas). So Angelinos wanting to follow his plan can start this earlier, perhaps in March. The SurviveLA polyculture that will be described after was started in October. Polyculture from Gaia’s Garden, a...

Continue reading…

Silver Lake Farms

Mr. Homegrown
Urban Farming
RLeave a comment
..., and Los Angeles Arts District farmer’s markets. Kolla believes in the power of the local, and only sells at farmers markets within a five mile radius of her unique urban farm. But best of all Kolla will be sharing her gardening knowledge with a new class she will be offering: “Organic Gardening: Introduction” takes place at Silver Lake Farms on Sunday, March 18 from 1pm-3pm. There are 12 spaces available for this class so regi...

Continue reading…

Garden Amendments as Placebos

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil, Thoughtstylings
9 Comments
I just finished writing an article for Urban Farm Magazine on the subject of aerated compost tea (ACT for short). It proved to be one of the most contentious subjects on which I’ve ever tried to, as Mark Twain liked to say, “corral the truth.” It got me thinking about other controversial soil additives popular in organic gardening and farming circles right now such as rock dust, mycorrhizae additives, and biochar. Now I pr...

Continue reading…

Homesteading Disasters: The Skunk Menace

Mr. Homegrown
Mistakes
16 Comments
...ueeze through any gaps. And each year I wake up the morning after planting to a kind of vegetable garden apocalypse–dozens of V shaped holes, overturned seedlings and scattered seeds. And each year I swear off vegetable gardening entirely. Actual photo of absent-minded conquistadors. So what’s the science behind this? Why do skunks dig? Skunks dig for doubloons dropped by absent-minded conquistadors many generations ago here...

Continue reading…

La Alternativa

Mr. Homegrown
Resources
RLeave a comment
...ead crumbs and warm milk, a flan made with fruit or vegetables rather than scarce corn starch and eggs, and laundry soap made from the jaboncillo tree. What we like most about Gálvez is that she is a strong proponent of urban gardening, maximizing every available space for food, a contrast to Martha Stewart’s useless pesticide and fertilizer drenched flower gardens. See the the film Power of Community How Cuba Survived Peak Oil for more on...

Continue reading…

Paleofuture Farming

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
From the awesome Paleofuture blog, which chronicles what folks thought the future would look like, a few notions of future farming. Apparently, this anticipated future (which more or less came to pass) involved “lounge chair gardening.” And, of course, factory farming: To the generation that came up with these ideas I’ll just say that I hope the dinosaur juice that keeps those factory farms humming holds out. Per...

Continue reading…