Watering 101

...ctually slows absorption. At any rate, I’d been watering this bed for some time with a sprinkler hose, waving it back and forth until I got bored. The water sunk in at first, then started to pool on the surface, and the pool lasted for a long time. At this point, a beginner might think she’d watered enough, but I’ve been fooled often enough before. I reached down into the bed and scraped at the soil. A fraction of an inch beneath the wettest area,...

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Parkway Plantings

...the best growing season for vegetables here in Los Angeles, and now is the time to start planting. Our parkway garden consists of two 1.8 x 1.8 meter raised beds with a central wire frame obelisk in each bed to support beans. We ordered all of our seeds this winter from Seeds from Italy and have begun succession planting seeds every two weeks. North Bed as of October 2, 2006 In the north bed we have: Broccoli Rabe – Cima di Rapa Novantina, which m...

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Defining a Garden’s Purpose

...rcent of the families, the parents did not carve out any back yard leisure time (relax, play, eat, read, drink, or swim) despite the presence of pricey features such as built-in pools, spas, above-ground pools, dining sets, lounge chairs, and swing sets. Children in this group of families enjoyed brief periods of outdoor recreation, but less than one hour in each case.” – from Life at Home in the Twenty-first Century: 32 Families Open their Doors...

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Getting Hardscaping Right

...do it right the first time, rather than re-do badly done projects multiple times. Go where contractors get materials not the big box stores. A recent trip to Home Depot reminded me about how ugly most of their stuff is. Get materials delivered. I once dropped a very heavy load of Trex on a steep hill near our home and watched, in horror, as it slid a hundred feet down the road. Thankfully no one got hurt. But it was not fun to reload the car on a...

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Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

...tter Box. (And that name is pretty dubious, btw, because I spend plenty of time cleaning the boxes still.) Anyway, it’s basically a nesting system, two trays nested together. The inside tray has a perforated floor. The lower tray is solid. The way it works is that pine litter, when it meets moisture, expands and crumbles into sawdust. This dust just builds up in a regular box, but in these perforated boxes the dust falls through to the bottom bin....

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