What laundry detergent should I use for greywater applications?

...h allows you to choose whether your wash water will go to the sewer or the garden. If you have one of these, you can do loads with bleach or what-have-you and send that water to the sewage treatment plant. Also, if you are washing diapers, this valve is an absolute necessity. All diaper wash water should go to the sewer. Soil is a great cleanser, but you don’t want to push your luck by depositing fecal matter around your garden. (Addendum here, to...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

...s what gardening is all about. This makes for boring gardens, and for weak gardens. Gardens are given character, given a strong sense of place, by their limitations: a dry garden, a beach garden, a rock garden, a wetland. Don’t fight the site, embrace it. Let the plants work it out themselves. Principle 3: Cover the ground densely by vertically layering plants Bare soil is uncommon in nature, being found only in deserts and a few other extreme env...

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Garden Fish

...We’ve ranted before about the sorry state of most affordable garden art. Which is why I’m pleased, for a change, to point to these beautiful and affordable “garden fish.”...

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Vegetable Garden Note Taking

...In a lecture I attnded at the National Heirloom Exoposition, Sonoma County gardening guru Wendy Krupnick had a simple suggestion for what to take notes on in your vegetable garden: variety planting day first harvest last harvest comments She suggested a minimum of three years of note taking. If only I had this data! If there isn’t one already, someone should come up with a social note taking app for vegetable gardening that would aggregate informa...

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Why Your Garden Should Be Dark at Night

...ark sky friendly lighting fixtures that direct light down, not up. Light only what needs to be lit, i.e. create a lighting plan rather than putting up a huge floodlight. Switch lights off when not in use. Reduce wattage–you don’t need as much as you think. Here’s another idea: garden with moonlight. Rather than light up your garden with artificial light, include plants with silvery-grey leaves or white flowers. Our white sage glows spectacularly d...

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