Search Results for: label/soil

219 results

Chop and Drop: Leaving Plant Residues in the Garden

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
...ulture, In two field studies comparing no-tillage with standard tillage operations (following wheat silage harvest and before corn seeding), we estimated that 0.89 and 0.97 inches more water was retained in the no-tillage soil than in the tilled soil. In three field studies on residue coverage, we recorded that about 0.56, 0.58 and 0.42 inches more water was retained in residue-covered soil than in bare soil following 6 to 7 days of overhe...

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Steve Solomon’s Soil and Health e-Library

Mr. Homegrown
Resources
1 Comment
I’m really enjoying the incredible variety of obscure old books being scanned and put up on the interwebs. Of interest to readers of this blog will be the archive of free e-books maintained by gardening author Steve Solomon. His Soil and Health e-library contains books on “holistic agriculture, holistic health and self-sufficient homestead living” You can download the books for free, but Solomon requests a modest $13 donation....

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Propagating herbs via cuttings

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
11 Comments
...o this when you’re in a hurry to get plants in the ground. But if you plan it right, this is a cheap and satisfying way of propagating plants. Erik and I are ripping up our back yard, basically taking it down to bare soil. I’m taking cuttings of many of the things I’m ripping out, so that I can replace them later.  I decided to document the process for the edification of all ya’lls. A note on timing: If you live in a c...

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Testing the Lead Testers

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead, Soil
8 Comments
Varian ICP-MS from Wikipedia Dear readers, Excuses for a technical post here, but we need your scientific expertise. If you have experience in soil laboratory testing techniques, or know someone who does, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment. We’re attempting to reconcile slightly different lead results from three different labs and I’d like to be able to write about soil testing methods. Two of...

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Backyard Orchard Culture

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
7 Comments
...tion lawsuits (workers falling out of those tall trees). More intensive growing has resulted in greater productivity as an unintended result of those lawsuits. Pay attention to rootstock! Rootstocks are developed for varying soil and climate conditions. Every grafted fruit tree should have two tags on it–the tree and the rootstock–don’t buy a tree whose rootstock is unknown and make sure you grow trees with rootsocks developed...

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Lasagna Gardening Simplified

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
16 Comments
First popularized back in the 1970s, “lasagna gardening” involves piling up thick layers of cardboard and uncomposted kitchen scraps on top of (sometimes) double-dug soil. The practice is touted as a way of removing lawns and improving soil with little work. Linda Chalker-Scott, Extension Urban Horticulturist at Washington State University, proposes a vastly simpler version of lasagna gardening.  Chalker-Scott suggests skipping th...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

Homegrown Neighbor
Gardening
21 Comments
...er three weeks I will use the final brew as a liquid fertilizer for my garden. I will try to take pictures while it ferments to share with you. Supposedly this will not only add nitrogen but also valuable trace minerals to my soil. While the stirring adds oxygen, overall this is an anaerobic process. The plants are sitting in stagnant water most of the time and apparently get quite stinky. But I have learned that stinky things, when applied in t...

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Growing Strawberries in a Self Irrigating Gutter (SIG).

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Self Watering Containers
12 Comments
...all’s self-irrigating gutter (let’s call it a SIG) to grow strawberries. Here’s how I did it: With some scrap wood I made a support system for the two gutters–one gutter holds water and the other holds soil. I sealed the ends of the two gutters with silicon putty and secured the gutters to the wooden support with screws. Next came my first trip to a hydroponics shop (there’s one on every corner in Los Angeles), to g...

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Mistakes we have made . . .

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Permaculture, Thoughtstylings
13 Comments
...and before scum and slime clogged up the pump. While the pump was solar powered, the profligate use of water was not the best example to set here in draught prone Los Angeles. After a few months we gave up, filled it in with soil and now strawberries grow there happily. We hear that Materials and Applications, a neighborhood landscape architecture firm that runs an amazing outdoor gallery, has stopped designing water features unless they are sup...

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Vermicomposting Class

Mrs. Homegrown
Composting, Events, Vermiculture
4 Comments
...erienced ones with interest in integrating their worm bin with their larger household systems. As cities struggle with basic recycling programs, and citizens learn how to grow tomatoes for the first time on their decks in soil from stripped from farmland and purchased at a store, there are some who are curious about having a more intimate connection to their waste and unveiling its worth. In this workshop we will go “beyond the bin&#...

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