Our new front yard: history

...ompost. We were relying on outside sources more than I liked. One of those resources was water–lest I forget to mention it, we’re in the fourth year of a severe drought. Living through a drought like this will change a lot about the way you think. We became more interested in working on a yard that served life at many levels–not just us. To be clear, we’d always considered such things, and written about them–we advocated mulching and keeping a goo...

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066 Saving Seeds and Seed Libraries with David King

...geles about these topics and more. During the podcast David mentions a few resources including the Organic Seed Alliance and Carol Deppe’s book Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties. David blogs at LA Garden Blog and also can be found at The Learning Garden. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitch...

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It’s safe to comment again

...n the subject, but will not.) The point is that this influx was sucking up resources and getting us into overage charges territory with our hosting service. Our intrepid webmaster put out the fire a couple of days back by making it hard to comment We’ve had no spam at all as a result. That is good. But no one is happy with the draconian commenting protocols. So we’re trying something new. Now, commenting is back to our usual system, but we’re clos...

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A happy tangle

...Sure enough, the sunflower knew what it was doing. It concentrated all its resources into an epic twelve foot growth spurt, straight up, like a bamboo stalk. Only once it crested the top of the pomegranate and found the sun did it begin to spread its arms, and I swear that when it did, I could hear a sigh of relief. Now this monster sunflower is sprawling all over the pomegranate, using it and the bird feeder pole for support. There are hundreds o...

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An Open Letter to Our Mammalian Friends

...digging up this image. I get it. This drought has been hard on you. Fewer resources leads to intense competition. But can we show a little more courtesy? To the raccoons of Los Angeles: I thought we had a deal. Like club hopping hipsters, the night belongs to you. So what’s up with the recent daytime activity such as the bold raid on our chicken run that took place on Saturday? I’m not going to apologize for spraying you with a hose. Thankfully y...

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