Plant Thievery

April 15, 2014

...tus to keep people from stealing the nectaplums higher up the front slope. Clearly I need to either let go of it all and accept the free exchange of the universe thing or plant a giant man-eating Venus fly trap to protect the barrel cactus. Have you experienced plant thievery? Comments!...

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LA’s Parkway Garden Dilemma: Not Fixed Yet

Mr. Homegrown

August 20, 2013

Gardening, Urban Farming

9 Comments

...way regulations. Throw out your plant lists. There are a lot of species of plants on the planet! Why can I plant Achillea millefolium but not Danthonia californica? Avoiding plant lists also goes for using the word “edible.” Most “weeds” are edible. Marijuana is edible (but would probably not last long in the parkway!). A lot of plants are “edible” but not necessarily something you’d want to eat. If a neighbor complains about my set of parkway pla...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

Mrs. Homegrown

May 14, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Soil

11 Comments

...up softer trimmings to about 6″ (15 cm) and leave them at the base of the plant. The plant will appreciate it. You can leave woody branches here and there, too, to support beetles and other bugs. (I make little piles of fallen wood, hoping to host lizards, but resign myself to the fact I’m more likely hosting mice. Well, it gives the neighbor’s cat something to do!) If you have a lawn, save all your clippings. They make great mulch (and compost)....

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Straw Bale Garden Part IV: Almost Ready to Plant?

Mr. Homegrown

May 7, 2013

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

18 Comments

...checked, however, suggest that this is hot enough. The test will be when I plant seedlings. If they end up stunted, I’ll know that I did not let the bales compost long enough. One problem I had with the conditioning process is that the straw on most of my bales was oriented with the stem sides facing the wide (vertical) side of the bale. This made it difficult to get the blood meal into the bales. One or two of the bales had the straw oriented wit...

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Yucca!

Mr. Homegrown

November 14, 2006

Foraging

1 Comment

...cca family, which even includes the Joshua Tree. Also, don’t confuse yucca plants with agave plants, as the juice of the of the agave leaf is a skin irritant. Agaves tend to have broader leaves in contrast to the spiky leaves of the yucca. Blue agave, incidentally, is the source of tequila. As Nyerges’ points out in his excellent article about yuccas and agaves, “A Piece of Fiber Could Save Your Life“, the flower stalk of the yucca can be eaten an...

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