Search Results for: label/self watering containers

189 results

Propagating herbs via cuttings

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
11 Comments
...grafting knife, but really any very sharp cutting implement. What you don’t want is to take cuttings with something so dull it crushes the stem. Think like a surgeon. –A seedling tray or a bunch of little plastic containers filled with good potting soil.(Note: Don’t use peat pots or egg cartons or anything similar. In general I don’t think they’re good vessels for starting plants, but in this case in particular it w...

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Peat-free Planting Mix Recipe With Coconut Coir

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, How-to, Soil, Vegetable Gardening
21 Comments
...r starting seeds, we’ve used it for years. Our friend Nancy Klehm taught us recently how to make a seed starting mix with coconut coir instead of peat moss. Thanks, Nancy! Here’s how to make it: Ingredients Watering the coir brick to break it up. Once saturated, this brick will expand to fill the tub. COIR:  A fibrous material made from coconut husks. It is sold in compressed bricks which expand greatly when wet. It is pH n...

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A Prickly Situation

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
RLeave a comment
Today’s post is for clueless white folks as our hermanos y hermanas already know this shit. As we’ve suggested before the rule with landscaping at the Homegrown Evolution compound is, if you gotta water it you gotta be able to eat it. But there are a few miracle plants, well adapted to Southern California’s climate, that are both edible and don’t need watering. One of the most versatile is the prickly pear cactus, of whi...

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Straw Bale Garden Part III: Adding Fertilizer

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
20 Comments
After watering our straw bales for three days our next step is to apply a high nitrogen fertilizer. We’re following West Virginia University Extension Service’s Straw Bale Gardening advice. They suggest a 1/2 cup of urea per bale or “bone meal, fish meal, or compost for a more organic approach.” (I think they mean blood meal as bone meal does not have much nitrogen in it.) Choosing the organic approach, we’re water...

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Lady Urine, Water Conservation and Halfway Humanure

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening
38 Comments
.... It’s sort of disturbingly medical-techno. The advantage of this type of funnel over, say, a kitchen funnel,  is that it has a very long nose or nozzle. This, she explained, allows her to neatly direct the urine into a watering can. Very smart. I wondered if other female readers out there had tried-and-true methods for urine collection that they’d be willing to share? I’m terrible at it, myself. This is particularly pertinent f...

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Seedling Disaster!

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes, Seeds, Vegetable Gardening
33 Comments
...in the garden!  I’ve had nothing but bad luck germinating seeds this spring for our summer garden and, as a result, our vegetable beds are as bare as the Serengeti. What happened? Here’s a list of possibilities: watering too much watering too little damping off  unseasonably cold weather (we germinate outside here) the occasional hot day on top of cold evenings the mindset of the gardener: being in a hurried, stressed mood as we fin...

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Happy Thanksgiving, Now Go Buy Something

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
1 Comment
...s the vegetable gardening bible around here. Since we started using Jeavons’ methods this fall I’ve noticed a significant improvement in the health of our garden. The only book on vegetables you need to own. Haws Watering Can Jeavons turned me on to this. The can produces a gentle spray that is perfect for watering flats of seedlings. I can’t believe I lived without this thing. It’s expensive but worth it. The Urban Home...

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Holy Crap! What a Nice Rooftop Garden!

Mr. Homegrown
Rooftop Gardening, Self Watering Containers
2 Comments
Photo by antifa123 Check out how these enterprising Chicagoans responded to the “but I don’t have room for a garden” argument via antifa173′s informative rooftop gardening Flickr set. Not only do you get to see their beautifully designed self-watering container system, but they tell you how to do it with detailed instructions!...

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Vertical Vegetables

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Self Watering Containers, Thoughtstylings, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
...certain plants vertical growing might work. I haven’t tried it, but this DIY vertical succulent garden in Sunset Magazine certainly is striking. But vegetables? Their roots need space and you’d need to do a lot of watering to keep a vertical vegetable wall happy. But growing vertically does not have to mean attaching roots to a wall. I can think of two simple vertical vegetable garden strategies where that $1,000 would go a lot furth...

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Homegrown Revolution at the Silver Lake Film Festival

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
Thanks to the cinematic revolutionaries at the Echo Park Film Center, Homegrown Revolution’s debut video “How to Build a Self Watering Container” will premiere at the Silver Lake Film Festival, as part of the Sustainable LA program on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY May 6th at 11:30 a.m. at the LosFeliz 3 (1822 North Vermont Avenue-map). We’ll be sharing a program with composting Culver City comrade Elon Schoenholz, the Fallen Frui...

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