Satan’s Easter Basket is Filled with Plastic Easter Grass

March 29, 2016

Domesticus, Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings

...instance (unless you’re having a Tim Burton Easter). The vast majority of plants are harmless, particularly if you’re not ingesting them. Just keep the babies from mouthing the greenery, to be safe. Pesticide sprays are more of a concern than plant toxicity, frankly, so gather from your own yard, or from places you know are not sprayed. Or, if you remain concerned, use only food plants from your garden or a neighbor’s, or go to the farmer’s marke...

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074 Beyond the War on Invasive Species with Tao Orion

Mr. Homegrown

January 27, 2016

Gardening, Permaculture, Podcasts

10 Comments

Is there something wrong with the “war” on invasive plants? What are these resilient plants trying to tell us? Is there such a thing as a “natural” landscape? What’s wrong with Glyphosate? These are some of the topics we discuss in our conversation with Tao Orion, author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration. Tao is a permaculture designer, teacher, homesteader, and mother living in the southern W...

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Should I Try Tomato Grafting?

Mr. Homegrown

January 18, 2016

Gardening, Tomatoes

15 Comments

...raft your own tomatoes? In case you’re not familiar with the idea, you can graft, for instance, an heirloom tomato on to a more hardy root stock tomato to increase disease resistance and yields. You can also graft tomatoes onto potato plants (two crops in one!) as well as graft tomatoes onto eggplants for plants that are more hardy in soggy soils. In the bad idea department, you can graft tomatoes onto tobacco (for nicotine laden fruit) and jimson...

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Build a vegetable prison to keep out raccoons and skunks

Mr. Homegrown

January 12, 2016

Gardening, Pests

18 Comments

...Down to protect small seedlings: And up to act as a trellis and allow tall plants to grow out the top: I’ve noticed that once plants get established and past the 2-foot point I don’t usually have to worry about those midnight raccoon parties. Obviously, if I had to deal with deer I’d have to build a bigger cage. I can also cover the whole thing in floating row cover material if I want to keep out cabbage leaf caterpillars. If you’re a Sketchup use...

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A happy tangle

Mrs. Homegrown

October 12, 2015

Animals, Nature Awareness

2 Comments

...hope for survival–and yet I’ve learned to respect the choices of volunteer plants, as Fukuoko-san advised. Sure enough, the sunflower knew what it was doing. It concentrated all its resources into an epic twelve foot growth spurt, straight up, like a bamboo stalk. Only once it crested the top of the pomegranate and found the sun did it begin to spread its arms, and I swear that when it did, I could hear a sigh of relief. Now this monster sunflower...

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