Seeds are from Mars

February 17, 2009

...Change began as a small New Mexico based company back in 1989, launched a series of organic convenience foods in Europe in 1996 and was purchased by Mars Incorporated, a family owned snack food company in 1997. Last year Mars partnered with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway (check out that retro B-H website!) to buy Wrigley and create a ginormous financial candy bar. Mmmm, cashy nougats! One of the founders of Seeds of Change, Howard-Yana Shapir...

Read…

Composting: Nothing is Wasted

Mrs. Homegrown

May 7, 2015

Back to the Garden, Composting, Gardening

23 Comments

Nigredo (1984) by Anselm Kiefer [This post is part of our continuing series on crafting loving landscapes, organized under the Back to the Garden tag.) Apropos to our discussion of food waste last week, our friend Alice sent us a clipping from the Wall Street Journal about industry response to the problem of food wastage. (Thanks, Alice!) It seems that appliance and household-product manufacturers have, through consultation and study, discovered...

Read…

2014: The Year in Review

Mr. Homegrown

December 29, 2014

Thoughtstylings

5 Comments

...manage to build some nice looking, hexagonal raised beds. Unfortunately, a series of possum and skunk raids, documented on a wildlife camera I got for my birthday, took out almost all the vegetables. I think I have the critter problem solved. Then again, I thought that before. Right now, why Kelly is away, I’m working on a secret landscaping project. Let’s see if she notices . . . February Advantages and Disadvantages of Raised Bed Vegetable Garde...

Read…

The Wonder of Worms

Mrs. Homegrown

May 21, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Vermiculture

5 Comments

[Another entry in the Back to the Garden series, which you can access by clicking the tag of the same name to the left.] As I’ve been saying for the last couple of weeks, the key characteristic of the loving landscape is healthy, living soils which foster plant and animal health without artificial inputs. Compost, mulch and worms form the holy trinity of organic soil health. Compost and mulch we’ve covered. Today I want to talk about worms, both...

Read…

How to Garden With California Natives: Lessons from the 2016 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

Mr. Homegrown

April 5, 2016

Garden Design, Gardening

7 Comments

...favorite garden on the tour is the Loxton/Clark garden in Pasadena. It’s a series of seductive outdoor rooms and cute little sheds (she shacks?) built from recycled materials. It invites you to sit down, read a book, relax and maybe take a nap. All spaces are small and divided. These sorts of divided and protected spaces, I think, make us humanoids more comfortable. How inviting, after all, is it to sit in the middle of a football field? We prefer...

Read…