Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

August 12, 2013

...years at least before you spread it. And then spread it around non-edible plants, or under fruit trees. The fruit trees won’t uptake anything nasty. It’s totally do-able and I’d do it again. But I’d rather do it again in a larger yard, where I could have a big, accessible compost bin. So now I’m doing something new. The New Paradigm I heard about a new kind of litter tray made specifically to work with pine pellets. I hate to be advertising–I get...

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Tolkien and Trees

Mrs. Homegrown

September 8, 2016

Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings, Trees

6 Comments

...abashed partisan of trees. A couple of quotes from him regarding trees are making the rounds on the internet, but I’ve learned to distrust popular quotations. They are often misattributed or downright made up. So I searched his edited letters for references to trees. There are many–he always mentions trees when he describes places, has funny things to say about artists who can’t draw trees, and has many trees of significance in his books, which he...

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Allium ursinum

Mr. Homegrown

April 2, 2008

Gardening

1 Comment

...bears and wild boar. People can eat em’ too, with both the bulb and leaves making a tasty addition to a number of dishes (see a detailed report on Allium ursinum in the Plants for a Future website). Favoring semi-shade, Allium ursinum thrives in moist, acidic soil–forest conditions, in other words. In short, not appropriate for our climate in Los Angeles, but folks in the northwest might consider planting some. Like all members of the Allium speci...

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Land Girls

Mrs. Homegrown

December 2, 2009

Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

...es,” saying, “The recession has led to endless talk of austerity measures, making-do-and-mending and growing your own vegetables on an allotment. But the big question is, of course, what to wear while mulching the compost on your carrots.” It’s good point. The Land Girls prove there’s no need to look like a slob out in the garden, trailing your already disreputable bathrobe through the mire–as Mrs. Homegrown is wont to do. Instead, as The Chap (an...

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Lost from the cradle of connection: the high price of driving

Mrs. Homegrown

September 11, 2015

Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings, Transportation

20 Comments

...ate change, air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, habitat loss, urban sprawl, songbird harassment–all of the rest of indicators of the unspeakably high cost of the personal automobile. So, okay, this is all depressing. What’s my point? The point is: What are we thinking? I mean, seriously, what are we thinking? Can we step back from this? I doubt it. We can’t talk about giving up the personal automobile. We can’t even think about altern...

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