Smurfs Team Up With US Forest Service

July 17, 2013

...w PSAs remind us, the forest provides benefits such as clean air and fresh water, and provides children with the ability to explore, use their imaginations, discover new wildlife and engage in unstructured and adventurous play. The Smurfs’ enthusiasm for their environment hopes to inspire families to create their own forest adventure and reap the many rewards that nature has to offer. Are we slipping into a terminal nature estrangement syndrome he...

Read…

Getting Hardscaping Right

Mr. Homegrown

July 18, 2013

Garden Design, Gardening, Mistakes

14 Comments

A water feature at Keeyla Meadows’ garden in Berkeley. One of the many lessons I learned on the tour I took of Bay Area gardens as part of the Garden Blogger’s Fling is that you’ve got to get the hardscaping right before even thinking about plants. When I asked garden designer Keeyla Meadows about the large stones in her garden she told me that they were craned in above the house. It was clear that at some point in the evolution of her small back...

Read…

LA’s Parkway Garden Dilemma: Not Fixed Yet

Mr. Homegrown

August 20, 2013

Gardening, Urban Farming

9 Comments

...ble or drought tolerant plants? There’s currently no permit fee to plant a water hungry lawn that needs to be “mowed and blowed” every week. It gets down to the simple fact that a human being has to decide what is a “nuisance.” Untended Bermuda grass with a couch and busted up bookcase: that’s a nuisance. But you can’t specify in the municipal code what a garden should look like. All you can do is offer suggestions. To that end I would suggest tha...

Read…

Tips on growing great garlic

Mr. Homegrown

September 12, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

8 Comments

...to clarify, he told me that garlic requires as much compost, nutrients and water as you can spare. Nekola said he doesn’t even plant garlic unless he’s prepped his beds for at least two to three years and noted that one of the best heads of garlic he ever grew took root accidentally in a compost pile. Pull the garlic cloves apart (leave the skins on) and plant them in the ground with the pointy end up. Nekola suggests planting them with a tablespo...

Read…

Kevin West’s Saving the Season

Mr. Homegrown

October 1, 2013

Food, Food Preservation, Reviews

8 Comments

...e Canning, Pickling, and Preserving blows all those other books out of the water bath. Full disclosure here: I’ve tasted a lot of West’s jams. I teach a bread making class at the Institute of Domestic Technology. After my bread demo West does a jam making session and I stick around to watch and, hopefully, filtch an extra jar. Those West jams are coveted items around the Root Simple household. What makes Saving the Season different from other pres...

Read…