How Can We Fix Our Public Landscaping?

July 8, 2014

...ow. The Ecology Center has a spectacular garden that shows do simple water harvesting to create a beautiful landscape with drought tolerant plants that attracts beneficial wildlife. We need similar organizations in Los Angeles. We have an immense pool of talent here that could fix that terrible purple gravel and artificial turf atrocity and go on to do so much more. Who’s in? And to those of you reading this elsewhere in the word, feel free to lea...

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Hops in Containers

Mr. Homegrown

August 2, 2009

Beer, Gardening, Herbs, Hops, Self Watering Containers

5 Comments

...ed with pulleys so that you can lower the “bines”, as they are called, for harvesting. Hops farmers in England demonstrating why you need to think about trellising. With a western exposure the hops get morning sun and shade in the afternoon, which seems to be perfect in our sunny, dry and hot Southern California climate. The only problem I’ve had is a bit of rust, but it doesn’t seem to have spread too badly. Hops suck up a lot of water and, thank...

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The Austrian Scythe is the New Weed Whacker

Mr. Homegrown

July 30, 2009

Tools

9 Comments

...ncomfortable to use. There’s also several different blades for weeding and harvesting and, like a bicycle, it’s crucial that your scythe fit your height. Scythe use is intellectual for me since years worth of mulching, a dry climate and a very small yard means that I don’t have any stands of weeds to knock down or wheat to harvest. But, if I had a large yard and grass to deal with, I’d dump the weed whacker in a heartbeat. For more info see Scythe...

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Getting started with worms

Mrs. Homegrown

August 29, 2014

Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture

8 Comments

...r a long time, so is easy to find new or used or at the library. Appelhof’s book has everything in it, from plans for building wooden bins, to feeding and harvesting, to explanations of the worm’s life cycle, to detailed trouble shooting....

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We are all gardeners

Mrs. Homegrown

April 2, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Thoughtstylings

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Pomo woman harvesting seeds, 1924, by Edward Curtis After a break for camping and other things, I’m returning to the series of posts I initiated a couple of weeks ago under the heading, Back to the Garden. While this series is meant to be practical, I have a little more “thoughtstyling” as we say around here before I turn to the hands-on material. Look for new series entries every Thursday. We are all gardeners. What does this mean? It’s a saying...

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