The Homegrown Mailbox: How and Where Do I Get My Soil Tested?

June 5, 2009

...aboratories 365 Coral Circle El Segundo, CA 90245 (310) 615-0116 www.bettersoils.com Test results very scientific No recommendations Soil and Plant Laboratory, Inc. 1594 N. Main Street Orange, CA (714) 282-8777 FGL Environmental 853 Corporation Street Santa Paula, CA (805) 525-3824 USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service 44811 N. Date Avenue Lancaster, CA 93534-3136 (661) 945-2604 Here’s a dirt cheap (pun intended) test for soil ph that you ca...

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What is green water?

Mrs. Homegrown

December 10, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Water Conservation

1 Comment

...and hold rain water rather than ejecting it straight to the street. We leave the leaves. We keep our clippings and fallen leaves on our land, and let them return to the soil. Mulch is is vital to living soil, while bare soil is dead soil. We make our yards lush. Soil life occurs around the root zones of plants, so more plants means better soil. We plant trees, which the founder of TreePeople, Andy Lipkis, calls “living cisterns.”...

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What laundry detergent should I use for greywater applications?

Mrs. Homegrown

February 7, 2014

Water and Power, Water Conservation

35 Comments

...-detergents, even ones marked “biodegradable”, are not appropriate for the soil because they are essentially salt-based (look for the word sodium on the label). They play well with aquatic life, bless them, and they’re a fantastic alternative to more toxic detergents if your laundry water is going to the sewer, but they aren’t good for soil microorganisms. Surely you’ve heard that salting the land is a bad idea? You don’t want to salt your garden....

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A Cheap Soil Testing Service

Mr. Homegrown

September 22, 2009

Gardening, Soil

7 Comments

...testing: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory. A standard soil test is $9, $4 more for the standard test plus organic matter. The standard tests includes heavy metals. That’s a bargain, and you don’t have to be a resident of Massachusetts. They also offer compost, fertilizer and plant tissue tests at reasonable prices. Read a review of UMASS soil testing by master...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

Mrs. Homegrown

November 17, 2015

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening

3 Comments

...sely planted from above, but if you get down on your knees and look at the soil at ground level, there may be all sorts of bare soil between the plants. To avoid this, you plant in layers, from the ground up. They identify four types of functions for plants in your design: Ground cover plants: They emphasize the importance of ground cover plants as the base layer of the community. These are low, somewhat nondescript, spreading, shade tolerant plan...

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