136 Garden Fundamentals with Robert Pavlis

On this 136th episode of the Root Simple podcast we talk to author and gardening expert Robert Pavlis about how to improve your soil, how to start seedlings in the winter, how to take care of houseplants and much more. Robert Pavlis lives on 6 acres of land that he has developed into a large private garden he calls Aspen Grove Gardens that contains around 3,000 perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees in southern Ontario, Canada. He is a Master Gard...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

...ng stuff fall and lay there. This, by the way, entirely contrary to common gardening practice, which seems to believe that if a surface isn’t covered in turf or cement, it must be swept as clean as a kitchen floor. I see a lot of dead soil in my neighborhood, dry and exposed and baking in the sun–but ever so tidy. Insulating the soil provides the conditions necessary for life to bloom in the soil. Mulch helps retain soil moisture (which lessens th...

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Digital Farming- What’s The Deal?

...t pretty busy. We can become so preoccupied with work, chickens, vegetable gardening, cooking, cleaning, blogging duties and email that we can miss some of the things going on in the world. I do like to occasionally check in with the world at large by reading the newspaper. I just read an article that I have to comment on. A recent New York Times article titled, ‘To Harvest Squash, Click Here,‘ introduced me to the world on online farming. Apparen...

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California Dreaming

...national. My 83 year old mom broke her sternum in an automobile accident, making her yet another victim of a city designed for cars that forces everyone to drive, even for distances of less than a mile. After the accident, many hours were spent dealing with doctors, auto body shops, insurance companies and the vile Automobile Club whose lobbyists, by the way, are busy in the state capital pushing for the auto-centric planning that ruins our citie...

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June: National Bathroom Reading Month

...are a water quality report like this one to what kind of water is good for making beer. Performance Bicycle Catalog. We get a lot of these catalogs since every few months we break a bike tail light and have to order a new one. They just don’t build bicycle accessories to last! These bike catalogs, aimed at recreational cyclists who drive somewhere to ride their bikes (note the cover) feature lots of god-awful candy-colored spandex outfits, $5,000...

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