Search Results for: label/self watering containers

192 results

Rain Barrels

Mr. Homegrown
rainwater harvesting
1 Comment
...quirements and weight of thousands of gallons of stored water. Thankfully, there are simpler strategies for harvesting rainwater. Rainwater used for irrigating plants does not need filtering or purification, and since outdoor watering accounts for the number one household water use, you’ll be using that water where it is most needed. Now, once again at the risk of sounding like a broken record, our strict rule around the SurviveLA homestead...

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More Washing Machine Greywater Fun

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
6 Comments
One of the problems with the washing machine surge tank greywater strategy is that what you are watering has to be downhill of the machine. This is a common problem with greywater systems, and trying to use pumps to get the water uphill is simply not economical, nor is it environmentally hip since those pumps have a lot of plastic and other icky industrial materials in them. Fortunately washing machines have a pump built-in and it’s possib...

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Arduino Homesteading Projects

Mr. Homegrown
How-to
5 Comments
An Arduino-based chicken coop controller on Instructables. At the risk of putting high tech in our low tech, I just took an introductory Arduino class at Crash Space along with the folks at Zapf Architectural Renderings. An Arduino is a simple, low cost microcontroller thingy. It’s got a bunch of digital outputs, analog and digital inputs and a programmable microchip. You download a program onto the chip (either one you’ve written yo...

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Cargo Bike Roundup

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, Transportation
9 Comments
...!” We imagine this sturdy old model, pictured above, delivering barrels of sauerkraut, blood sausage and hefeweisen to the local Bier Garten. The bike equivalent of the sturdy old Frau behind the bar at our local German watering hole, the Red Lion. This is Utility with a capital U. Sadly, Mr. Homegrown Evolution has forgotten every word of his college German, so all we can make out is that this bike represents the Grüne Liga, some sort of e...

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Vegetable Gardening for the Lazy

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
12 Comments
One of the problems with growing vegetables is all the labor involved–starting seeds, composting, watering and watching out for bugs. It’s worth it, of course, for the tasty rewards, but many busy folks are simply too exhausted after work or corralling the bambinos to pick up a shovel and garden. For those who’d rather sit on the porch with a martini than laboring in the field, and we often include ourselves in that category, p...

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Urine as a Fertilizer

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
17 Comments
How do I spend my Saturday mornings you ask? Answer: scanning the peer reviewed literature for articles about using human urine as a nitrogen source in the garden, i.e. taking a leak in the watering can. As we’re currently hosting some excellent classes at our house taught by Darren Butler, a big proponent of what he calls “pee-pee-ponics,” I thought I’d take a look at the science of urine use. Urine offers a free and re...

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Favorite Plants- New Zealand Spinach

Homegrown Neighbor
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
15 Comments
...ue spinach which just bolts in Southern California’s heat. New Zealand spinach can be grown in the summer when other greens may not grow so well. My front garden be is pretty much all New Zealand spinach now. The drip watering system broke and most of the plants withered and died or were mercilessly attacked by bugs. But this plant kept on going strong. I have been growing it for many years and find it a reliable plant. In The Complete...

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Tomato Report: Franchi Red Cherry

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Tomatoes
19 Comments
I don’t have much to say about this variety from Franchi named, somewhat generically, “Red Cherry”. It grew well and is very productive considering the compact size of the vine. The taste, however, was acceptable but not exciting. This could be because of over-watering on my part. I could find very little information about this tomato on the interwebs other than that it is an indeterminate, early variety that grows well in pot...

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My Favorite Lettuce Mix

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Seeds, Vegetable Gardening
7 Comments
...dlings. Judging from the crowding in the photo above, we need to eat some more salads soon. There’s never been pest problems save for the edible, and aggressive, fennel seedlings you can see amongst the lettuce (memo to self: cut down fennel before it goes to seed this year!). And, at the risk of repeating myself, I pretty much grow Franchi seeds exclusively. It’s a family run Italian company that dates back to 1783. This year I grew...

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Get a Soil Test!

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead
7 Comments
Regular readers have probably already got this message, but right now we can’t repeat it enough. If there’s a lesson with our backyard lead scare , it’s to practice due diligence when beginning a garden –or better yet, when you buy property–and that means getting a soil test from a soil lab. They’re not that expensive, especially when you consider the high cost of remediation, and the well being of your self...

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