Search Results for: label/water%20conservation/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

822 results

Straw Bale Gardens

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
27 Comments
...is, test ) the straw from our local feed store. The Compost Gardener has good instructions for this. In our case, we’re doing the method where you plant beans in soil, and water them with tea made from the straw. Washington State University–instructions for how to start a Straw Bale garden....

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Tips on growing great garlic

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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...

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Straw Bale Garden Part III: Adding Fertilizer

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Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
31 Comments
...l does not have much nitrogen in it.) Choosing the organic approach, we’re watering in two cups of blood meal a day to each bale for days four to six. Days seven through nine, we’ll cut back to one cup of blood meal per bale. By day ten the bales should be almost ready to plant. Once the bales are conditioned I’ll need to add a balanced organic fertilizer to provide potassium and phosphorous. And I discovered that taking the time to level the bale...

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What’s in Worm Leachate?

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Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture
4 Comments
...leachate (the liquids the flow our of your worm bin) from a home vemicompost setup. It’s pretty strong stuff! Gillman concludes, this could be a great liquid fertilizer if it were used properly. I’d recommend diluting it somewhere between 1:1 and 1:5 worm juice : water before applying it, and I’d only apply it once every week or two. If you want to use it, try it on something that you’re not too concerned about first, just to make sure that it doe...

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