Search Results for: label/rooftop gardening

231 results

Speakeasy – this Sunday

Mr. Homegrown
Events
RLeave a comment
Just a reminder that Homegrown Evolution will be speaking at the Smart Gals Speakeasy this Sunday August, 17th at 7 p.m. in Los Feliz. We’ll do some hands-on apartment gardening, play some games and listen to the music of our friends Triple Chicken Foot, who will bring their brand of foot stomping roots music to what will be a fun evening. Location and details:Mt. Hollywood Underground4607 Prospect Avenue, Los FelizAdmission: $15.00Informa...

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Eat Your Pests

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
13 Comments
...ust banned this practice, for some reason). Perhaps you have to grow up eating insects to be fully comfortable with the bug eatin’. If you look at the entry on rabbits in the original edition of Rodale’s Organic Gardening Encyclopedia, J.I. Rodale suggests eating them. This advice has been, unfortunately, edited out of the revised version. The way the economy is going this summer we may have to revise that encyclopedia again . . ....

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How To Design a Garden Step I: Identifying Goals

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
7 Comments
Food, beauty and habitat. Garden design does not come naturally to me. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and continue to make them. One of the biggest of those mistakes is thinking of a garden as a collection of plants. Designing this way leads to lots of money wasted at the nursery and a garden that looks like a hoarder’s living room. Trust me, after years of misguided gardening design, your first step should be to identify goal...

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Native Plant Workshop

Mr. Homegrown
Events, Native Plants
3 Comments
...rnia Native plants and how to incorporate them into your garden, this is the event you’ve been waiting for! Native plants not only save water, they save species. Learn about crucial native plant-animal relationships and gardening to attract birds, butterflies and hummingbirds. With only 4% of our wild lands left, urban and suburban native plant gardens will be the “make or break” difference to the support and preservation of bio...

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Our New Straw Bale Garden–Part I

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
24 Comments
...yet to be built). We’ll keep growing in bales until we have enough compost for the beds. The problems presented by our property–lead and zinc contamination and a backyard that is up 30 steps–make straw bale gardening a promising solution. Bales and fertilizer are easier to carry up the stairs than bulk soil. It will be cheaper than buying soil. No lead and zinc. I was also inspired by this attractive straw bale garden in Ariz...

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Seeds are from Mars

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
17 Comments
...he founders of Seeds of Change, Howard-Yana Shapiro, now serves as director of plant science and external research for Mars Inc. and is vice president of agriculture at Seeds of Change. He’s the well respected author of Gardening for the Future of the Earth, and is currently at work overseeing the sequencing the Cocao genome in a joint project with the US Department of Agriculture, Mars. Inc. and IBM. As for the ultimate outcome of that pro...

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Tomato Report: Blush

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening
RLeave a comment
I think I’ve tasted my new favorite tomato variety: Blush. I got to tuck into a box of these delicious tomatoes at the farm of Shu and Debbie Takikawa near Los Olivos. Yellow with red streaks, Blush tomatoes have the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity. The blush tomato was developed by geneticist and tomato geek Fred Hempel and are available via Seeds of Change. Due to a series of gardening blunders that I’ll blog about at s...

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Stella Natura: Planting by the Signs

Mr. Homegrown
Biodynamics, Thoughtstylings
20 Comments
...alendar also has a handy space for taking notes on plantings, another thing I’ve been bad about in the past. I want to be clear that I’m not discounting empiricism. But since don’t have a lab at my disposal, gardening is an intuitive process whether I like it or not. And, as Riccardi suggests, we need to seek a balance. The cornerstone of alchemy is the expression “Solve et Coagula”, to dissolve and bind together. We...

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Spreadin’ Seed

Mr. Homegrown
Seeds
3 Comments
The past week was spent feverishly spreading genetic material around. No, we weren’t backstage with Metallica. We’re talking plants. Here’s a few ways we’ve been spinning the genetic biodiversity wheel in the past week: Seed Swaps Yesterday was International Seed Swap Day of Action, sponsored by Food not Lawns. We celebrated the day in Altadena with a bunch of local gardening enthusiasts and countless boxes of seeds. We g...

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Our Holiday Gift Suggestions

Mr. Homegrown
Reviews
4 Comments
That dreaded holiday seasons is just around the corner. With unemployment still high we hope that many of you have negotiated a family gift truce to limit tedious shopping. Or perhaps you’re making things to give away. But if you still need to get a little something for that special homesteader on your shopping list, we’ve got a few suggestions from our Homegrown Evolution Amazon Store. Even if you just click through the store and b...

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