Our Grape Arbor is a Stacking Function Fail

July 23, 2015

...cultural notion of “stacking functions.” The grapes provide both shade and food. The fantasy was to spend the summers like a Roman emperor, reclining on a couch and occasionally reaching up to grasp a succulent cluster of grapes. Let me, however, add a few a few unsavory slices to this permacultural sandwich (in addition to the delusions of grandeur): rats, mice and squirrels. All day and night hungry mammals rain down half chewed grapes. And the...

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043 Growing Vegetables with Yvonne Savio

Mr. Homegrown

April 15, 2015

Gardening, Podcasts, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...isode of the podcast we pick her brain about: Why you should grow your own food. Favorite vegetables. How to harvest vegetables. How to prepare a vegetable garden. Making compost. The problems with 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...

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046 Caring for Older Cats

Mr. Homegrown

May 13, 2015

Animals, Cats, Podcasts

1 Comment

...al disease Oxifresh oral hygene The dietary needs of older cats Dry or wet food? Obesity Arthritis Kidney disease Water Hyperthyroidism avmi.net Grooming Step stools Checking your cat’s teeth and gums Feeding times Urinating outside the litter box Integrating older and younger cats Heating pads for older cats If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can sub...

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The Wonder of Worms

Mrs. Homegrown

May 21, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Vermiculture

5 Comments

...tuation. I do know that you can’t really use too much when it comes to any food-bearing plant. Generally we don’t have truckloads of worm castings at our disposal, but what we have, we should use generously. Of course, common sense must prevail. The cactus and succulent families don’t have much use for rich castings, nor do plants of arid regions. Trees and shrubs wouldn’t mind them, but hopefully they’ve got their own worm populations going on in...

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Tools for Conquering Internet Addiction

Mr. Homegrown

May 22, 2015

Thoughtstylings

15 Comments

...ng a harder time initiating and completing the sort of gardening, cooking, food preservation and general DIY projects that provide fodder for this blog and for our books. I think it’s time for some drastic action. It’s time to limit certain highly additive and often counter-productive Internet activities such as email, social media and general surfing not related to my core mission. Two tools I’m evaluating are LeechBlock, which works with the Fir...

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