Saturday Tweets: Naked Gardening Day Edition

May 2, 2015

...@slate — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 29, 2015 Where can you find clay soil near your California adobe project? Check out this great soil map from UC Davis!: http://t.co/2L1ENJOn2a — adobeisnotsoftware (@riseupmud) April 26, 2015 Drought Frames Economic Divide of Californians http://t.co/ndTXBBUtsF — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 28, 2015 So, finally, we've got a thriving downtown with thousands of people on foot, and we're penalizin...

Read…

043 Growing Vegetables with Yvonne Savio

Mr. Homegrown

April 15, 2015

Gardening, Podcasts, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...ith municipal compost. Raised beds vs. growing in the ground. Where to buy soil. Testing soil. How to irrigate vegetables in a drought. Buried buckets for watering vegetables. Seeds vs. seedlings. Succession planting. How to plant seedlings. The website and calendar that Yvonne is putting together. Grow LA Victory Garden Program You can reach Yvonne at [email protected]. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213)...

Read…

Are Rubber Mulches or Tires in the Garden a Good Idea?

Mr. Homegrown

April 14, 2015

Gardening

8 Comments

Rubber mulches are used both as a soil cover and underneath artificial turf. Is this a good idea? According to “Garden Professor” Linda Chalker-Scott, the answer is no. She has a new fact sheet on the subject which concludes, Rubber mulches can be attractive, easy to find and apply, and may not need frequent re-application. However, there are significant problems associated with using these mulches. In the short term, rubber mulch is not as effec...

Read…

Yet More Reasons to Mulch

Mr. Homegrown

October 14, 2014

Gardening

4 Comments

...owner’s studies revealed that mulch changes soil structure so that mulched soils are able to absorb more water than un-mulched soils. And, most astonishingly, mulch provides habitat for beneficial fungi that repel the dreaded root rot organism Phytophthora cinnamomi. Downer is also a mulch myth buster: Adding a layer of mulch does not rob soil of nitrogen. And Eucalyptus mulch? Not a problem. His recommendation is to apply a layer of six inches of...

Read…

The Miraculous Lavender

Mrs. Homegrown

July 25, 2014

Gardening, Herbs

14 Comments

...for months now. I don’t water it. I don’t send water down the stairs. The soil off the stairs is dry, because that slope is planted with natives, which are getting no irrigation. There’s no plumbing beneath the staircase, either. Yet the lavender keeps getting bigger. I’m going to have to pull it soon, before it ruins our stairs. But I don’t want to, because it’s so determined to live. And this goes to show that when a plant wants to grow somewhe...

Read…