We are all gardeners

...t on the invisible, but critical aspects of the landscape: the life of the soil and the path of the water. The active soil ecology supports the surface plants without need for store-bought inputs. Rain water is captured and channeled through a variety of means to both irrigate the garden and charge the groundwater. The plants in the loving landscape promote biodiversity and the local ecology. They are largely native, but not dogmatically so. The l...

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How to Deal with Extremely Root Bound Plants

...ts are often dehydrated plants, because the pots are mostly full of roots, making the soil hard and water repellent. If this is so, it helps to give the plants a good soaking before you un-pot them by placing them in a bucket of water for a few minutes. Method A) Mildly root bound plants can be helped along by gently massaging the root ball with your hands just before planting to loosen the roots and open the ball if it has become hard-packed. If...

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Straw Bale Gardens

...he practice a try in our backyard. Why? We have lead and zinc contaminated soil so growing veggies in the ground is questionable. We live on a hill and it’s easier for us to drag a straw bale up the hill rather than bulk or bagged soil. Straw bale gardening is an old and tested practice. Straw bale gardening comes with the endorsement of horticulture professor and noted garden myth debunker Linda Chalker-Scott. The practice has been tested in dry...

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Saturday Tweets: Eating Crickets and Making Coffee

...ecipe Re-Run http://t.co/zYOyLPuW6p — Root Simple (@rootsimple) October 15, 2015 Top 33 Coffee Projects http://t.co/eWy4mIES5L — Root Simple (@rootsimple) October 15, 2015 Sitting for long periods doesn't make death more imminent, study suggests http://t.co/JoT6NiV3x8 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) October 15, 2015 We love this book by @ThomasRainerDC – the very best book on landscape design! https://t.co/cCIJ2a99mJ — Root Simple (@rootsimple) Oc...

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Waxed Cloth Food Wrap (Made in a solar oven for bonus self-righteousness points)

...d be perfect for this project. Now, with the sun higher, it rockets up past 200F pretty quickly even without the clips. So, at this time of year, working at midday, all I had to do was watch the time and temperature to make sure the oven didn’t get too hot. I put the tray in the oven, closed the lid (no clips, making the heating is less efficient on purpose) and waited about 10-15 minutes. The temp would quickly rise above 150F and the wax would d...

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