“Urban Homesteading” belongs to us all

...r Urban Homesteading, for winning the right for all of us to use the term “urban homesteading” freely from now on out. Longtime readers may remember that back in 2011, the Dervaes Institute sent notices to a dozen or so organizations, informing them that they could no longer use the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” unless speaking about the work of the Dervaes Institute, as they had registered trademark on both terms. Beyond that,...

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Polyculture

...r hose. Both are preferable to standing around with a garden hose, and the plants like it a lot better too. FYI, plants prefer occasional deep soakings to brief daily showers. However, while the seeds were sprouting and delicate we did water from above with a hose set on gentle sprinkle. Not knowing all of the habits of these plants, many of which are from growitalian.com, we just threw them all in to see what would happen. When the coldest nights...

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The Manzanita Miracle, or, why you should love native plants if you live in a dry climate

...place up even in the heart of a drought. All we have to do is treat these plants right. Native plants have a reputation for being tricky, and it’s true, in that they don’t act like typical imported landscape plants–the lawns and the boxwood hedges. They don’t need even a fraction of the water as exotics do, so they are almost always overwatered, and die as a result. I think it is hard for us to even imagine that plants can be so profoundly unthir...

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Our new front yard, part 2: theory

...wild” looking. We don’t like too many shrubs. We don’t like over-exuberant plants–plants tall enough to loom over us. We don’t like plants which block our views. In one of his books (and unfortunately I don’t remember which one) the great plant designer Piet Oudolf talked about how he quite likes to use big looming plants for the air of mystery and drama they can add to a garden, but admits that most clients feel threatened by them, and recommends...

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The Wonder of Worms

...out 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) of castings on the surface of the soil of your house plants and container plants. Add them to your seed starting mix. (If you keep a worm bin, you’ll know how readily seeds sprout in castings!) Top dress established plants, be they vegetables, flowers or established perennials Mix them with bagged nursery soil to get your potted plants and raised beds off to a good start Apply a thin layer of castings to the top of your garde...

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