Search Results for: label/rooftop gardening/page/3/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

558 results

Homegrown Evolution in the LA Times

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
11 Comments
Today’s Los Angeles Times Home and Garden section has a story on Guerrilla gardening, “Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area”. The article mentions our parkway vegetable garden, which consists of two 6-foot square raised beds with two wire obelisks to support beans and tomatoes. We constructed it in October of 2005 and have grown a few season’s worth of crops. Here’s our parkway garden just after putti...

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What To Do With Old Vegetable Seeds

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening
14 Comments
In short, throw them around. We’ve got a lot of expired seed packages sitting in a shoe box. And I’ve been reading a newly published translation of a book by the late, “natural farmer” Masanobu Fukuoka (review coming soon). Fukuoka inspired me to distribute those old seeds around our micro-orchard to see what comes up. Fukuoka has some tips in his book The Natural Way of Farming for creating a semi-wild vegetable garden:...

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca on Living Within Limits

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
Writing in the 1st century AD, Seneca makes a good case for common sense limits: Is it not living unnaturally to hanker after roses during the winter, and to force lilies in midwinter by taking the requisite steps to change their environment and keeping up the temperature with hot water heating? Is it not living unnaturally to plant orchards on top of towers, or to have a forest of trees waving in the wind on the roofs and ridges of one’s...

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The Barrier Method

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
6 Comments
Over the years we’ve lost countless plants to digging, chewing, trampling and sucking critters, mammals and insects both. We finally got smart. It makes sense to invest a little extra time and money to protect your crops and your livestock with physical barriers. This practice started sort of piecemeal around here, with us only exerting ourselves over particularly problem-prone situations. Nowadays protection is standard for every bed we p...

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U-Dig-It Folding Shovel

Mr. Homegrown
Tools, Vegetable Gardening
2 Comments
I came across this nice little folding hand shovel called the “U-Dig-it” at a surplus store. It measures 5 3/4 inches when folded and weighs six ounces with the convenient belt holster. I used it this morning to transplant some okra seedlings and I can also see taking this tool camping. I dig the U-Dig-It design, and I already prefer it to the hand shovel that got buried in the yard somewhere a few months ago. I can see this tool b...

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Compost Rebuttal

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
35 Comments
Kelly’s secret compost pile. I found out via a blog post last week that Kelly had secretly constructed a compost pile to deal with a surplus of kitchen scraps. She knew I’d be unhappy with this due to my anal retentive approach to composting. So why am I unhappy with this pile? The reason is simple: it’s too small and will never generate enough heat to: Kill weed seeds. Kill human and plant pathogens. Kill root nemat...

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UMass Soil Testing

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
1 Comment
I finally got around to trying out the University of Massachusetts’ soil testing service and can report that it’s fast and cheap. I tested two areas of my yard for both nutrients and heavy metals and found out, more or less, what I expected, that I need to add a small amount of nitrogen. Surprisingly, for having such an old house, I don’t have a lead problem. It costs just $9 for the basic test and $13 for the basic test + hea...

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Saturday Linkages: Bus Offices and Secret Doors

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
2 Comments
...13/01/24/secret-exterior-door-with-remo.html … “Yes You Can Build Your Own Tiny House” http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/01/yes-you-can-build-your-own-tiny-house.html#.UPtz5N_K5l8.twitter … HOWTO assemble the Powercube, hydraulic power source for the Global Village Construction set: http://boingboing.net/2013/01/18/howto-assemble-the-powercube.html … A just plain cool site: inspirationgreen.com/index  Thanks, Davis! Gardening...

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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 problem–Imprelis: http://ow.ly/1UWcBj How to protect plants from fro...

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Our New Straw Bale Garden–Part I

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
24 Comments
Straw bales–ready to prepare. Pot in the center will be a solar powered fountain. We’re going to experiment with a straw bale vegetable garden in our backyard, inspired by Michael Tortorello’s article in the New York Times. The plan is to grow in the bales and harvest the resulting compost for use in permanent raised beds (that have yet to be built). We’ll keep growing in bales until we have enough compost for the beds. T...

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