Straw Bale Garden Update: Success!

July 15, 2013

...input of outside resources in the form of straw and fertilizer, straw bale gardening is a great solution for beginning gardeners or for those cursed with bad soil. And the skunks that have decimated my previous vegetable gardens are unable to get up on the bales. I’m considering trying another straw bale garden during our winter season. And I’m also pondering building boxes to put the bales in to make the garden look a bit neater. Compare the stra...

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Straw Bale Garden: What I Learned

Mr. Homegrown

November 12, 2013

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

29 Comments

...ost! My future in straw bale gardening I’ve decided to continue straw bale gardening on a smaller scale. I’m going to build some raised beds and fill them with soil, but I’m leaving room for two bales to grow nitrogen hungry crops, principally squash. I’m also planning on building a box to hold those bales so I don’t have to stake them every season. Like most things in life it’s not an either/or proposition. You can have a conventional vegetable g...

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Savoring the Fruits of Your Labor Panel Discussion

Mr. Homegrown

March 17, 2014

Events

...ry 601 Santa Monica Blvd. MLK Auditorium SAVORING THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR Gardening and preserving stories and strategies to improve your quality of life and your bottom line. Backyard gardening and food preservation are growing popular trends, but in the real world, what can these practices do for you individually, and for the community around you? Do we create a wider consciousness of community when we grow, preserve and share the products of o...

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Straw Bale Garden Part V: Growing Vegetables

Mr. Homegrown

June 18, 2013

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

23 Comments

...in the bales are doing better than veggies in my two remaining raised beds. The reason, I believe, is that the beds are depleted and the compost I added to them was low quality. While more resource intensive than growing in the ground or raised bed, straw bale gardening has a lot of advantages for the beginning gardener. Integrating fertilizers into a straw bale is a lot easier than making high quality compost and a lot faster. While not a long t...

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Bisphenol-A

Mr. Homegrown

October 29, 2008

Thoughtstylings

5 Comments

...the early onset of puberty in girls. We’ve done our best around our little urban homestead to eliminate plastics from our lives, but where we still encounter BPA is in canned foods which we like to have on hand. Next time you pop open a can take a look at the inside–odds are there is a nearly invisible clear plastic lining which is where you’ll find the BPA. So with BPA we have yet another one of those throw up your hands in disgust, anger and des...

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