Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land

...out, to do as much as we can to capture and recycle water, to improve our soil, to start breeding out tough-as-nails annuals, to develop more effective “guilds” (in Permaculture speak). In regular talk that means we plan manage our landscaping wisely, so the plants support one another. I’d encourage you to think of your own little patch of the world as an oasis too. How can you help make it more resilient to the shocks of strange weather? How can...

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Maintaining a Worm Bin

...scraps here and there, but mostly the texture of the contents looks like soil or coffee grounds. Or maybe fudge, if it’s more wet and compact. Fudge is a less than ideal environment for worms. In the picture at the top you’ll see my most recent working side. There’s a lot going on in there still, some big food pockets, wood shavings everywhere, but the texture is becoming too black and dense overall. Compost worms like a little air, a little “wig...

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Saturday Linkages: Goats, Chainsaws and a Big Blue Rooster

...ou-can.html?utm_source=feedly … Crafty Crafting with cat hair: no, I’m not making this up The Redventure Romp Cocktail by Amy Stewart http://gardenrant.com/2013/07/the-redventure-romp-cocktail.html?utm_source=feedly … Vinyl Record Lamps http://www.dudecraft.com/2013/07/vinyl-record-lamps.html … Combine a Mason Jar and Juice Carton into a Resealable Dispenser http://lifehacker.com/combine-a-mason-jar-and-juice-carton-into-a-resealable-845153794 … A...

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Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

...r cat litter. The weak spot, of course, is the poo. The poo can go in the toilet or into the garbage. Even with three indoor cats, day to day this doesn’t amount amount to all that much. I understand that sea lions are impacted by toxiplasmosis, which is why I don’t flush our cat poo. I don’t know how much this caution is worth, actually, considering the staggering amount of cat poo is laying around in yards and parkways all over Los Angeles, read...

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Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

The directions for seed saving in our last book, Making It, almost got cut. Perhaps we should have just changed those directions to “Why it’s OK to buy seeds.” The fact is that it’s not easy to save the seeds of many vegetables thanks to the hard work of our bee friends. That being said, Shannon Carmody of Seed Saver’s Exchange gave a lecture at this year’s Heirloom Exposition with some tips for ambitious gardeners who want to take up seed saving...

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