Search Results for: label/soil/page/3/2011/04/making-it

507 results

Grow the Soil

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
3 Comments
and soil-busting mix of clovers and legumes. Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply has a nice selection of annual cover crops here. We used their dryland mix to deal with the bad soil in our front yard and we’ll re-sow it again this fall. Cover crops send down roots that break up soil, with the legumes used to fix nitrogen–it’s a great way to amend a large area with almost no work involved. Here at Homegrown Evolution we don...

Continue reading…

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

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
9 Comments
...appy to take the letters from Kevin, the horse poop for compost and try our best. Here’s one question we get a lot: Q: Y’all know where I can get my soil tested? I’ve started HUGE garden in my side yard and it just occurred to me that it is where people used to park their cars. I’m concerned about Oil or other pollutants from the cars that might still be in the soil. Any experience with this? Can I test without it costing...

Continue reading…

Five Lessons We Learned About Lead in Soil

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead
18 Comments
is problem is in urban areas. Towards that end I though I would share five things that we learned from our backyard lead crisis: Buyer Beware. When you are shopping for a house do multiple soil tests. Once you buy the house it’s too late. Real estate contracts in California (and I suspect elsewhere) have been loaded up with disclaimers about lead and old houses. I’m no legal expert, but I suspect it would be difficult to go after th...

Continue reading…

UMass Soil Testing

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
1 Comment
I finally got around to trying out the University of Massachusetts’ soil testing service and can report that it’s fast and cheap. I tested two areas of my yard for both nutrients and heavy metals and found out, more or less, what I expected, that I need to add a small amount of nitrogen. Surprisingly, for having such an old house, I don’t have a lead problem. It costs just $9 for the basic test and $13 for the basic test + hea...

Continue reading…

Till vs. No-Till

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil, Vegetable Gardening
31 Comments
duction with a more aggressive approach to soil amendment – a similar argument is often made in conventional agriculture (compared to organic agriculture) to till, use excessive fertilizers, pesticides, etc. I guess it depends on how you regard the soil – as a medium for growing vegetables or as an ecosystem (and I’m not being judgmental). It’s a philosophical choice. No-till agriculture advocates argue that tilling...

Continue reading…

Healing the yard with a huge compost pile

Mrs. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
20 Comments
The new compost pile is covered with a tarp to keep moisture in. Eventually it will fill this whole space. In the background you can see our leftover adobe bricks. So–our regular readers will know that we have high levels of lead in our back yard soil. We’re dealing with this by filling most of our yard with mulch and perennial natives to lock down the soil (lead laden dust is bad) and to diversify the local ecosystem. Mea...

Continue reading…

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...

Continue reading…

A Cheap Soil Testing Service

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
5 Comments
I’ve started a new method in the garden: test the soil, amend according to the recommendations and grow. Lather, rinse, repeat. In many parts of the U.S., you can get free or low cost soil tests from your county extension service, but not here in Los Angeles. Some time ago I answered a reader’s question about where to get soil testing done, only to have to correct my response several times. Last week, Homegrown Evolution pal and the...

Continue reading…

Peat-free Planting Mix Recipe With Coconut Coir

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, How-to, Soil, Vegetable Gardening
21 Comments
Nancy’s coconut coir-based planting mix. Here she’s doing the squeeze test, which we talk about below. From an environmental perspective peat moss is a nightmare. Mining of this material is unsustainable, contributes to global warming and destroys habitat for many plants and animals. But, for starting seeds, we’ve used it for years. Our friend Nancy Klehm taught us recently how to make a seed starting mix with coconut...

Continue reading…

Broom Corn–or is it Broomcorn?

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Gardening
18 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: This summer I suggested we plant broom corn for no other good reason than I saw the seed pack at the nursery and thought it would be fun to make a broom. (This sort of temporary insanity often overtakes me in the seed aisle.) So without knowing anything at all about broom corn or broom making we planted a block of the stuff. Maybe I should have done a little research into broom making before planting, but I let it slide ...

Continue reading…