Village Homes: A Model for Sustainable Suburbs

February 21, 2014

Design, Garden Design, Permaculture, Urban Farming

...limits–the almond crop is harvested every year and sold to support the the gardening services for the entire development. There are also community garden space available for those who wish to raise more food crops than their own yard space allows. The lush growth coupled with the reduced asphalt surfaces makes the whole development 10 degrees Farhenhiet cooler in the summer than the surrounding suburbs. I could go on and on, but perhaps the best w...

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Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals

Mr. Homegrown

February 25, 2014

Gardening, Lead

13 Comments

...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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What’s Your Personal Food Policy?

Mr. Homegrown

November 22, 2012

Food, Thoughtstylings

13 Comments

...grow all of our greens, but other times bugs/bad soil/forgetfulness in the garden sends us on a trip to our local discount Armenian supermarket. Other times we’re so busy that we pick up prepared crap at Trader Joes. And frankly, my personal food policy, started to sound a bit holier than thou. As Rumi says, Spiritual arrogance is the ugliest of all things. It’s like a day that’s cold and snowy, and your clothes are wet too! One issue, however, th...

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Happy New Year!

Mr. Homegrown

January 1, 2009

Thoughtstylings

2 Comments

...Happy New Year and many thanks to all of you for supporting this blog and contributing comments, suggestions and opinions. Thanks to all of you who have bought our book and thanks to our brave and innovative publisher Process Media. We have one resolution for the new year: to tinker/experiment/garden/problem solve/explore and have fun doing all these things, laughing and learning from our failures as we go....

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Bird Netting as a Cabbage Leaf Caterpillar Barrier

Mr. Homegrown

November 15, 2012

Gardening, Pests, Vegetable Gardening

19 Comments

...The best way to do this is by planting arches of wire or tubing over your garden bed, and stretching the cover material over those arches– like a covered wagon. Netting has advantages over row cover: you can see and water through it and it’s more readily available. I’m curious what you, our dear readers, think of the idea? Mrs. Homegrown chimes in: I’ll add that in the past readers have said they use tulle material as an insect barrier– you know,...

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