Search Results for: label/self watering containers

183 results

Tomato Review #2 Banana Legs – it don’t look like a banana and it don’t got legs

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
balcony, folks in apartments could do the same. For our container we used a repurposed storage bin and we’d recommend the largest container you can find for tomatoes or sticking to tomato varieties specifically bred for containers. As soon as the large root system of a tomato plant gets down into the water reservoir at the bottom of an SWC you can get some leaf curl. This did not seem to reduce the output of our plant, but it was somewhat u...

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A garden that looks like a meth amphetamine lab

Mr. Homegrown
Self Watering Containers
1 Comment
...an ugly concrete patio just off our back door. We could have spent much money and effort to jackhammer it and replace it with a yuppie entertaining deck but instead we’re growing food on it. We built some self-watering containers (for instructions on how to do this see our earlier post) and we’re growing collard greens, tomatoes and southern highbush blueberries, so far with great success. It looks like a meth amphetamine lab. But si...

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Bucket Crapping

Mr. Homegrown
Humanure, Preparedness
RLeave a comment
Those ubiquitous five gallon buckets we’ve used to make self-watering containers are good for another purpose– an improvised crapper. When the shit hits the fan, you’ll need a place to shit and thankfully the fine folks at the World Toilet Organization have come up with a clever design for an improvised flush toilet using just a five gallon bucket, a coat-hanger, and a plastic bag. Now, not to be too graphic, but thanks to the...

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How to Homestead

Mr. Homegrown
Self Watering Containers
RLeave a comment
Homegrown Evolution’s Self Watering Container video is up on the brand new site How to Homestead, described by its creators as: “the only site on the web providing you with a collection of how to homestead videos to stream or download. No longer relegated to the rural sphere, homesteading can be done anywhere and we are here to show you how.” With many homesteading activities, from chicken slaughtering to tortellini making, int...

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Side Yard Hops Trellis

Mr. Homegrown
Beer, Gardening, Herbs, Hops
17 Comments
...into a “V” shape and cut down all but the strongest two bines from each mound in the spring. Year three of the front porch hops: Cascade and Nugget. Two years ago I started Cascade and Nugget hops in self watering pots placed by the porch on the east side of the house. This year I transferred those bines to the ground and they seem to be doing well. Cascade, especially, grows like a weed here. While I proved to myself that yo...

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Resources

...bucket stove Seed Sources: Garden Edibles–Heirloom Italian Seeds Seed Starter’s Handbook (pdf) Seeds From Italy Peaceful Valley Native Seeds Self Irrigating Planters Green Roof Growers How to Build a Self Watering Container PDF PVC-free instructions from Josh Mandel Our You Tube video on how to build one Our blog roundup of related resources...

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On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
34 Comments
...y Fatigue and frustration–the double knockout punch of skunks and the hot weather left me on the ropes with little enthusiasm for ongoing gardening maintenance. Ego–forgetting that urban homesteading is not about self-sufficiency—to chase self-sufficiency is a fool’s errand. I should be happy just to have a few good salads and be thankful that I can buy good vegetables at a local farmer’s market. I don’t think self-suffic...

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The Urban Homestead

Mrs. Homegrown
Publications
1 Comment
“The contemporary bible on the subject” — The New York Times The Urban Homestead (Expanded and Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen  (Process, 2010) ISBN: 978-1934170106 (The first edition, the one with the “American Gothic” cover, was released by Process on June 1, 2008) Buy it at:  Amazon • Abe Books • Barnes...

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Our Books

...well organized book–if we don’t say so ourselves. Here’s a preview what it looks like inside. Please forgive the black layout marks: The Urban Homestead (Expanded and Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen  “The contemporary bible on the subject” — The New York Times This celebrated, essential ha...

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Survival Gardening

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Preparedness, Thoughtstylings, Vegetable Gardening
27 Comments
...shop where we spent a fair amount of time, calculator in hand, figuring out how many calories you can squeeze from small spaces. What gets left out in the “survival garden” sales pitches is that, if you want real self-sufficiency, you’ve also got to maintain the soil fertility that you deplete by harvesting. To do that you need to grow all your own compost. For this, Jeavons suggests what he calls “carbon and calorie crop...

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