Broadleaf Plantain

November 16, 2006

...ducing its aesthetic quality. Frankly, SurviveLA applauds anything that will cause golfers to slip and fall. The world’s 35,000 golf courses use enough water each day to support 4.7 billion people. Power to the broadleaf plantain!...

Read…

Essential System #5 – First Aid Kit

Mr. Homegrown

August 31, 2006

Preparedness

2 Comments

...ake Syringe – for cleaning out wounds – you can also improvise this with a water bottle Antibiotic cream If you already have a first aid kit you can pimp it out with a few of these items. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of large bandage material such as the sanitary napkins. One acquaintance of ours who was unlucky enough to have been severely cut by falling glass in the Northridge quake stumbled around bleeding for hours while her friend...

Read…

Nasturtium “Capers”

Mr. Homegrown

July 19, 2006

Food, Foraging

1 Comment

Nasturtium grows like a weed here at the SurviveLA compound. We don’t water it, though if we did we might have a larger crop. The nice thing about Nasturtium is that the entire plant is edible – both the leaves and flowers have a strong peppery flavor and the flowers brighten up the Spartan salads we chow down on in the late spring. Once you plant this stuff, at least here in Los Angeles, the thousands of seeds it produces guarantee that you will...

Read…

Worm Composting

Mr. Homegrown

July 25, 2006

Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture

2 Comments

...tem you are acquiring pets – worm pets, that need just the right amount of water (too much and they’ll drown, too little and they will be unhappy), and food (if all your meals are at In and Out Burger they won’t get enough grub or if you are some kind of hippie vegan they won’t be able to keep up with the waste). You must also sift and separate the worm casings from the worms themselves from time to time. One advantage to worm composting is that y...

Read…

Root Knot Nematodes, Meliodogyne spp.

Homegrown Neighbor

September 29, 2009

Pests

12 Comments

.... I have had plants that mysteriously won’t grow. No amount of fertilizer, water or sunlight seems to make them happy. Then, I pull out the plant and find the tell-tale sign of root knot nematodes- galls on the roots. The roots are stunted and distorted. They look like they are covered in tumors. According to my California Master Gardener Handbook, plant parasitic nematodes (including the root knot type) can form complexes with pathogenic fungi in...

Read…