De-Cluttering the Garden

February 12, 2015

...o room for plants that are sickly or just don’t look attractive. Ditto for fruit trees that have never produced. I’m with Piet Ouldolf on this: if possible, plants in our tended spaces need to look good year round (even when dormant) and they need to provide wildlife habitat. Rethinking the garden. Even the best gardener has to rethink and renew a garden periodically. Many perennials become gangly, trees shade out other plants and things just gene...

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What does the loving landscape look like?

Mrs. Homegrown

April 16, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening

18 Comments

...planted thickly with climate appropriate plants, often with an emphasis on fruit trees and herbs. Though it is human dominated, it is not hostile to other life–birds have places to roost and bathe, and lizards can sunbathe on the pavement– and it can host a great diversity of plants, which pleases the pollinators. The photo below is a corner of a larger garden, but could just as easily be the design of a small yard: Moorish Garden at Tohono Chul i...

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Our Grape Arbor is a Stacking Function Fail

Mr. Homegrown

July 23, 2015

Gardening, Pests

40 Comments

...ermentation going. It’s like something out of my inner Martha Stewart’s worst nightmare. A poster by Benjamin Dewey. Available in his Etsy store. I wish I had a conclusion to this post with a miraculous solution, like say specially trained roof Chihuahuas. I don’t. I do wish that the non-fruit producing Vitis californica vine that grows along our northern fence could be swapped with the prodigious one on the arbor. If fruit grew on the fence vine...

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What are trees worth?

Mrs. Homegrown

August 20, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Nature Awareness, Permaculture, Thoughtstylings, Trees

21 Comments

...orts, with no trouble to us. Or maybe not, if squirrels are stripping your fruit trees clean! So we might have a vested interest in fruit trees–but all trees are beneficial to other life, above and below ground. Think of each tree as a city, teaming with life which is mostly invisible to us, but vitally important to the world. Trees heal the soul. They give us shelter from the sun and the rain. They give us a place to read and dream. A place to hi...

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Should I Try Tomato Grafting?

Mr. Homegrown

January 18, 2016

Gardening, Tomatoes

15 Comments

...graft tomatoes onto potato plants (two crops in one!) as well as graft tomatoes onto eggplants for plants that are more hardy in soggy soils. In the bad idea department, you can graft tomatoes onto tobacco (for nicotine laden fruit) and jimsonweed (for poisonous fruit–note this strange incindent). The Illinois Extension service has detailed tomato grafting instructions and notes on root stock selection here. So what do you think? Intrigued? Comme...

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