The Strange World of Artificial Plants

...owers, but everything from corn to . . . hemp. Having a bad year with your tomatoes? Green Set Inc. will set you up with some fake ones: They even have a very large (and suspiciously shiny) fake zucchini: But I think my favorite fake plants come from a company called New Image Plants, providers of “The World’s Best Artificial Marijuana.” Customers? Marijuana dispensaries, the set decorator for Weeds and law enforcement! From their website: Across...

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Without Merit: poison in your compost

...wn on land sprayed with aminopyralid I could lose my veggies, particularly tomatoes, lettuce and legumes which are highly susceptible to this chemical. So what can we do? First the practical: test your compost. Washington State University has instructions for performing a simple test here (pdf). Basically, you plant three pea seeds in a 50/50 blend of compost and potting mix and compare their growth against a control group of three pea seeds grown...

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How to Size a Breakfast Nook Table

...ut?” Readers of this blog have more important concerns such as how to keep tomatoes alive or how to justify some ridiculously complex project such as liming your own corn for homemade masa or distilling your own essential oils whilst your household comrades complain about the tardiness of dinner. Our long list of unsolvable problems at the Root Simple compound includes such things as bad posture, contaminated soils, middle age paunch and, of cours...

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Introducing Lora Hall

...e seedlings and fruit trees at the Highland Park farmer’s market (map) where she runs a booth with Trisha Mazure every Tuesday from 3 to 8 pm. When we visited her at the market last week Lora had a bunch of interesting plants including purslane, tomatoes, tomatillos as well as a selection of fruit trees appropriate for our warm climate. In the LA area and want some fruit trees for your backyard? Some gardening advice? Contact Lora at fullcirclegar...

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Top Ten Vegetable Gardening Mistakes

...oth a steady supply of produce as well as a more attractive garden. 5. Not labeling plants What kind of okra is that? I have no damned idea. Too bad when I want to plant it again next year. All it takes is a sharpie and a plastic knife to fix this problem. 6. Not keeping a garden diary The two most important things to know are when something was planted and when the first and last harvests took place. With this data you can plan out next years gar...

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