Search Results for: label/native plants/page/11/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

637 results

Tips on Composting from Will Bakx of Sonoma Compost

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
2 Comments
Sonoma Compost’s composting operation. On Thursday at the National Heirloom Exposition, Will Bakx, soil scientist and operations manager of Sonoma Compost, gave a rapid fire lecture on the nitty gritty details of composting. Here’s some of his useful tips: Temperature and Turning Compost should stay above 131ºF for 15 days to kill pathogens. Bakx recommended getting a thermometer to check the temperature every day during the...

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Why You Should Avoid Staking Trees

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening, Miscellaneous, Trees
6 Comments
The correct way to stake a tree. Image from the Vacaville Tree Foundation To answer the question of why tree staking should be avoided, one can turn to the latest Extension Service advice or to the nearly 2000 year old words of Seneca: No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. It...

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More Washing Machine Greywater Fun

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
6 Comments
A. 8. Since the water is under pressure it’s possible to rig up fancy distribution systems in the garden. For ideas on this see Ludwig’s book, Create an Oasis with Greywater. 9. Lastly, a note to our rentin’ homesteadersR11;this is a greywater strategy you may be able to get away with. And if you burn out the pump, and the machine is owned by the landlord, you’ll be sticking it to the Man!...

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Build a Washing Machine Greywater Surge Tank

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
1 Comment
After the shower, the next best source for greywater is the washing machine. Constructing what is called a surge tank with a fifty gallon plastic drum is the simplest way to reuse your washing machine waste water. Perfectly good water that would ordinarily just go down the sewer will instead water your plants after first spending a short time in the fifty gallon drum. Temporarily draining your washing machine into a fifty gallon drum has two adv...

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Accidental Garden Design: Pomegranate and Prickly Pear

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening, Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
Can good garden design be taught or is it something you’re born with? If it’s inherited I didn’t get that gene, unfortunately. But at least a garden can sometimes put on a good show despite the gardener’s lack of design sense. Above, the view out our front window of our pomegranate tree (Punica granatum ‘Wondeful’) against our overgrown prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica). These two plants have a lot...

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In the Gutter

Mr. Homegrown
rainwater harvesting
1 Comment
Our roofs, of course, are another impermeable surface that prevents rainwater from going where it should goR11;to our edible landscape. We can minimize the surface area by living in as small a house as possible and trying to maximize open ground. At our own compound we’ve even gone so far as to remove some previous resident’s bad addition and reduce the footprint of our house. So called green roofs, which have soil and plants growing on them...

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Saturday Linkages: Hiding Spots, Bedbugs and Rodents of Unusual Size

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
2 Comments
...et-8-great-hiding-spots-in-ordinary-objects/ … 130 Square Foot Micro Apartment in Paris | Inthralld http://inthralld.com/2013/04/130-square-foot-micro-apartment-in-paris/ … Bedbugs! How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs in Their Tracks http://nyti.ms/12H9HDI Gardening All About Gabions : Cheap Retaining and Other Garden Features http://shar.es/JHCQS  New killer compost problemR11;Imprelis: http://ow.ly/1UWcBj How to protect plants from fro...

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3D Greetings

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
6 Comments
Homegrown Evolution’s holiday gift to our readers is a headache. Well, to be precise, we offer you three dimensional images of two of our favorite garden plants. Above, the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) and, below, spearmint (Mentha Spicata). To view these two images in three dimensions follow these instructions, specifically the bit about “parallel viewing”. Be persistent, like all good things it might take some p...

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Comopost, Compost, Compost

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
As if I didn’t need a reminder of how important compost is to a vegetable garden, note the tomato above. It’s on its way out, but it grew with no supplemental water in hard-packed clay soil contaminated with lead and zinc in a hot side yard. Why did it do well while the rest of my vegetable garden did not do as so good this summer? Homemade compost. I didn’t have enough compost for the rest of the veggie garden so I bought som...

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Broadleaf Plantain

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
5 Comments
Today we introduced some weeds into our garden, planting some broadleaf plantain (Plantago major) seeds that we collected on our bike camping and wild food excursion with Christopher Nyerges. As Nyerges noted, this is one of those plants that Martha Stewart hates, and that makes the purveyors of toxic herbicides and lawn care products rich. You can’t eat your lawn folks. You can, however, eat broadleaf plantain. The young leaves are edible...

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