Search Results for: label/native%20plants/page/3/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

611 results

105 GardenNerd’s Tips for Organic Gardening Success

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Gardening, Podcasts, Vegetable Gardening
...ch on a lot of topics and tips including: Monarch VR CropSwap Time Banking Homestead Hamlet Repair Cafés Sandflex Almanac.com Epic Seeds Baker Creek Seed Savers Exchange Renee’s Garden Summer Spinach National Heirloom Expo Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry Keeping tomatoes healthy mid-season Powdery mildew When to harvest tomatoes Extending the growing season for tomatoes Mulch Shade cloth Capillary matting Don’t pull your bolting vegetables! Ollas What...

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How to Put Together a Small Scale Solar System

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Podcasts, Solar, Water and Power
5 Comments
.../magazines/websites I’ve combed through in search of a basic tutorial for anything less than wiring up a whole house. Now I know how thanks to a podcast conversation between Eric of Garden Fork and Will of the Weekend Homestead. Will describes how he rigged up a few panels and batteries to power lights and charge tools in his off-grid barn. Check out the show notes for the specific parts Will used to put together his system....

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Picture Sundays: Name This Flower

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Picture Sundays
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...I planted our parkway with a California native wildflower mix from Theodore Payne last year. This flower was the most successful and reseeded itself. But I lost the seed package and don’t know its name. Identify it and you win bragging rights . . . Update: Dree wins bragging rights! It’s Elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata)....

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On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

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Gardening, Mistakes
17 Comments
...the U.S., you simply have to plant Pierce resistant varieites such as the native Vitus californica or muscadine grapes. The contrast between our flame seedless and our Vitus californica vine, in fact, is stunning. The flame is stunted and diseased, while our Vitus californica is so vigorous that I have to beat it back on a daily basis to prevent it from subsuming our house and the neighbor’s. And while we’re working on resistant grapes we may nee...

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Rain- The Best Gift of All

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rainwater harvesting
14 Comments
...into a detention basin instead. It will be a small depression planted with native plants adapted to our weather patterns. More water for me, less water wasted! Directing rainwater from your roof into the landscape is often simpler and lower in cost that harvesting in a barrel or cistern. The small 55 gallon barrels I have are great, but they fill up very quickly even in a light rain. You would be amazed at how much water you can collect. There are...

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