Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals

...mustard, mugwort, basket willow and sunflowers to remediate a contaminated garden. The results are promising with some metals down 50% in a year. Mugwort (Artimesia vulgaris) did an especially good job with a wide range of contaminants. I should note that Garm Wallace, who runs Wallace Labs, a soil testing service, says that phytoremediation can take many years to get heavy metals down to a safe level. That being said, breeding plants specifically...

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Saturday Linkages: Logs, Invasives and Italian Veggies

...rtodue http://feedly.com/e/AeUKDhxu The Trouble with the Word “Invasive” | Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2014/01/the-trouble-with-the-word-invasive.html … Colon shaped tiny hotel: http://www.unusualhotelsoftheworld.com/casanus OTIS | Tiny House Swoon http://tinyhouseswoon.com/otis/ Changing the maple syrup paradigm. Crazy efficient, yet also grim, from the tree’s perspective– and mine. http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=news&storyID=17209#.Ut8epe...

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Saturday Linkages: Can We Please Have More Underpass Chandeliers?

...corrupt. Veto it! http://goo.gl/fb/vhLtK What’s wrong with an ugly winter garden? http://gu.com/p/3mb4a/tw The secret light of plants by Elizabeth Licata http://feedly.com/e/_hlIqNZG California Legalized Selling Food Made At Home And Created Over A Thousand Local Businesses http://onforb.es/1e8mNCY Massive Water Reduction http://feedly.com/e/v787ggKN Fodder System Updates http://feedly.com/e/dKXb-Y-Q It’s Not the Snow, It’s Not the Politics: Blam...

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Nomadic Furniture

...ma shopping at American Apparel–cool in a cognitive dissonance sort of way, but a bit too edgy to wrap my head around. A set of hexagonal stools, on the other hand, might make a nice addition to my new hexagonal garden beds. Many thanks to Kendra for giving me a copy of this book. I should also note that there is a Nomadic Furniture 2 and 3. And you can watch a lecture by Hennessy: http://vimeo.com/74444897...

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California’s Drought and What To Do About It

...r and encourage beneficial wildlife. I consider them part of the vegetable garden, in a way. I just made a major change to our laundry to landscape greywater system–more on this in another post. I’ve consulted historical irrigation data to more intelligently program our drip irrigation system. Keep in mind that 77% of California’s water use goes to agriculture (the media tends to forget this). Residential water use is a small part of the total. Th...

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