Search Results for: label/native plants

318 results

A Prickly Harvest

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
2 Comments
...Angeles, prickly pear needs no additional irrigation, needs no pesticides or fertilizers, tolerates terrible soil and produces useful food. It’s the perfect plant for the lives of folks too busy to tend fussy non-native plants. On the first anniversary of Homegrown Revolution, formerly known as SurviveLA, and a year after our last prickly pear fruit harvest season, we can now announce why, ironically, we’ve been too busy to keep up wi...

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Two Vegetable Gardening Commandments

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
9 Comments
...get any vegetables. And, if I plant any brassicas at this time of the year without first covering them with row cover material, they will get munched to the ground by cabbage leaf caterpillars.  I’ve found that once the plants gets established I can pull off the row cover or bird netting and enjoy a season of un-munched veggies. Kelly Speaketh on this Issue: Erik seems to need to get this off his chest–he gets dramatic when garden dis...

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Moldy Grapes!

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
13 Comments
t, like sauerkraut, you really do have to keep the food below the brine with weight. Recent Failure #2: Moldy Chamomile Tea We had a bumper crop of chamomile this year, due to generous volunteerism on its part. Several large plants sprung up in unlikely spots and thrived with no help at all. I harvested lots of the flowers so I could have chamomile tea in the cupboard until next spring. The mistake I made in this case was not drying the flowers...

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Nance Klehm at Farmlab Tomorrow

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Events, Humanure
2 Comments
...aterials gathered offsite (casino food waste and grass clippings, horse manure from stables, spent coffee grounds) into biologically rich soil. The resulting waste-sponge systems sustain or aid: a habitat of native species of plants, digestion of the high salinity of the indigenous soils and the capturing, storing and using of precipitation. She has shown and taught in Mexico, Australia, England, Scandinavia, Canada, the Caribbean, and the United...

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Saturday Linkages: Tiny Houses, Human Cheese, Doomsday Condos and Speakin’ Squirrel

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
2 Comments
...Fools day jokes: Breast Milk Ice Cream, Human Cheese http://aol.it/In5zBn Doomsday condos in old missile silos: http://boingboing.net/2012/04/11/doomsday-condos-in-old-missile.html Thomas Rainer’s 5 Myths about Native Plants http://bit.ly/IxkbcY Learn to speak squirrel: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/learn-to-speak-squirrel-in-four-easy-lessons/2012/04/09/gIQAV8Jr6S_print.html Abused Altadena Kitten Still Needs a Home http://bit.ly/...

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This Is Why Mint Is Invasive

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
11 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: That’s me pulling out a mint plant from our garden, as part of The Great Renovation. Check out those amazing roots! This container was filled with a 5 inch thick mat of thick, tangled roots. No wonder mint is unstoppable. I adore mint, but we had two big mint plants, and under the new scheme, I’m trying to be more efficient about the way space is used in the yard. So this guy had to go. I thought I’d be di...

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Gathering of Community Gardeners

Homegrown Neighbor
Events, Gardening
2 Comments
This weekend is the third annual Gathering of the Gardens in Los Angeles. While the event is put together by the non-profit L.A. Community Garden Council, it is open to all interested parties. You don’t have to be a member of a community garden to attend, just interested in community building and gardening. There will be workshops and discussions on topics such as vegetable gardening, composting, native plants, beekeeping and even a worksh...

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Bagrada, The Bad News Bug

Homegrown Neighbor
Gardening, Pests
5 Comments
..., kale and cauliflower. The local nursery says they are destroying the allysum as well. In my garden they have been particularly devastating to an heirloom broccoli raab and some wild arugula. They also are munching the caper plants. Actually, they don’t munch, rather they suck juices out of a plant. The nymphs are small and resemble a ladybug. Mature bagradas are black with orange markings and look like a beetle. They are often seen in mat...

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Droopy Leaves are Not a Good Thing

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
11 Comments
Droopy Dawg Mrs. Homegrown here: So I just learned I’ve been taken in by a popular myth. You know how in the summer, the leaves of some plants go droopy in the heat of midday, then bounce back when it cools off? I’d heard…somewhere…who knows how these things get planted in your brain…that this was nothing to worry about. I’d also heard that was ineffectual, anyway, to water them midday. Well, I was wr...

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Nursery Customers From Hell

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Thoughtstylings
19 Comments
We’ve been going to Sunset Nursery since we bought our house fifteen years ago. The staff has always been polite and helpful and they have a diverse selection of plants. On a whim, Kelly took a look at their overwhelmingly positive Yelp reviews. But some of the Yelpers prove how hard it must be to work in a nursery and deal with a public that can charitably be described as disconnected with the natural world.  Take this Yelper: I’ve...

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