Search Results for: label/water%20conservation/page/3/2011/04/making-it/page/64/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

1156 results

Let’s Get Biointensive

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
11 Comments
...ant is mature, also creates a living mulch which shades the soil and saves water. Jeavons suggests cutting out some triangles in different sizes to assist in planting. Using scrap wood, I made triangles in 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 15-inch sizes, taking the spacing suggestions in Jeavons’ charts for the seeds I had planted in flats. When it came time to transplant the seedlings I used the triangles to create hexagonal blocks of tightly spaced veggies. C...

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Greywater Workshop at Good Magazine

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Events, Water and Power, Water Conservation
1 Comment
...ap lumber to get a gravity assist. We’ll also look at Art Ludwig’s direct “laundry to landscape” system. Topics will also include: Greywater compatible detergents Choosing the best plants for greywater Creating mulch basins Greywater dos and don’ts Plumbing parts Water conservation and efficiency Greywater cocktails (just kidding) Hope to see you all tomorrow!...

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Real Estate Bubble Bananas

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Foraging, Gardening
4 Comments
...as are not my favorite plant for Southern California as they take a lot of water and get somewhat rangy looking when the wind rips up their leaves. But they are one of the most greywater tolerant plants and a good choice for paring with the outflow of a shower or laundry machine. Fruit score: 10 to the squirrels 2 to the people I’m sorry to say that I don’t know what variety this banana tree is, but June is a good month to plant bananas here in So...

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Mown and Blown: The Problem With Leaf Blowers

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Gardening
28 Comments
...ance” landscapes which consist of a lawn and brutally pruned hedges. These water hungry landscapes provide neither food, beauty or habitat. (They are also not enjoyed by people: half of the suburban participants in a UCLA study of home life in SoCal never went into their backyard. Another 25 percent went outside for a few minutes a week.) Yet this style of landscape is our dominant style of landscape because the homeowner doesn’t need to think abo...

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LA’s Parkway Garden Dilemma: Not Fixed Yet

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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...

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