Designing the World’s Most Pretentious Garden Shed

September 13, 2016

...Pinterest board to gather more notions, mostly from Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden, Little Sparta: The garden shed design I settled on is a kind of mashup of Ian Hamilton Finlay and the front of an “airplane” bungalow (a common type of house in our neighborhood). Next it was time to put the idea into Sketchup. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sketchup rocks. All DIYers should know how to use it. With Sketchup I was able to come up with a...

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Our Disastrous Summer Garden

Mr. Homegrown

September 15, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

37 Comments

...omegranate). The drought and an extreme heat wave pushed everything in the garden to the edge–and a few over the edge: in the last month we abruptly lost some garden stalwarts, including a rosemary bush and a culinary sage. Despite all these disasters, I came back from the Heirloom Expo with some ideas: Spend a little less time on Facebook and a little more time in the garden. Come up with better raccoon fortifications. Take out stone fruit that i...

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Help Plant a Garden — and Help a Local Eagle Scout

Mr. Homegrown

June 23, 2016

Events

...n (exuberant) team of young scouts and to help get another section of food gardens built. Start time is 9am, and we’ll continue all day until it’s done. Bring your own garden gloves. If you’d like to help with assembling benches, bring your own toolbox. Although much of the project site is in the shade, we recommend sun hats / sun protection. The Garden is at 6700 West 83rd in Westchester – Los Angeles 90045. Please RSVP if you can come. If you ca...

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What laundry detergent should I use for greywater applications?

Mrs. Homegrown

February 7, 2014

Water and Power, Water Conservation

35 Comments

..., so some people will opt to soak the bag in a cup of hot water first–like making tea–and then dump the water and the bag into the wash. Other people stew the nuts in water and make soap nut tea, which can then be used like liquid soap, for both hand washing and laundry. There’s lots of info online about soap nuts if you poke around a bit. I just remembered that I posted here back in 2010, asking for feedback on the nuts, and got lots of it. So yo...

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Steal this Book!

Mr. Homegrown

May 28, 2008

Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

...family! Blog, twitter, friend, digg and yell! From the press release: The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a burgeoning new movement: urbanites are becoming farmers. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, city dwellers are reconnecting with their land while planting seeds for the future for our cities. Whether you’d like to harvest your own vegetables, keep heirloom chickens, or become more energy independent, this...

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