Make Your Own Irrigation Line Hold Downs That Actually Work

March 17, 2015

...out your circular saw fitted with a metal blade or your bolt cutters and you’re now equipped to make as many hold downs in whatever custom size you want. I usually make a bunch in varying lengths to accommodate different soil types: everything from our raised beds to the hard packed clay soil we built an adobe oven out of. Someone should turn this idea into a business. It would be the most boring, but useful, Kickstarter project yet....

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Polyculture

Mr. Homegrown

December 7, 2006

Permaculture

14 Comments

...ypes to extend the length of your season. Cover the seeds with 1/4 inch of soil. Meanwhile, start cabbages from seeds in containers, early and late maturing varieties. 4 weeks after sowing you can pull some of the first radishes, because they grow fast. As you eat those, put the cabbage seedlings in the holes. 6 weeks after sowing you can eat the lettuce. First as a baby lettuce mix, later in its more mature leafing form. Pull out entire plants to...

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Getting started with worms

Mrs. Homegrown

August 29, 2014

Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture

8 Comments

...ome of the same ways. Vermicompost adds nutrients and good bacteria to the soil and help soil retain water. Plants love it. In a worm bin, your garbage becomes black gold! Worm bins vs. compost piles While vegetable scraps can also be put into compost bins, not everyone has the space or the time or the physical strength to maintain a compost pile. Worm bins, though, are easy to maintain and can fit into every lifestyle, from a single person living...

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Decomposed Granite as Mulch: A very bad idea

Mr. Homegrown

April 30, 2014

Gardening, Native Plants

36 Comments

...plants, including hardy natives and succulents. It stifles the life of the soil, and does not build new soil. And eventually, the plastic will fail, and the weeds will come through (some come through even when the plastic is new), and whoever is left holding the bag a couple of years down the road will be pulling decaying bits of plastic out of their garden for evermore. What’s a better approach? Wood chips. Pile it on thick. Skip the plastic line...

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Saturday Linkages: Comfrey, a Parking Rock Star and Voracious Worms

Mr. Homegrown

March 22, 2014

Saturday Linkages

5 Comments

...berkeley/#.Uyyal0F4Lo4.twitter … Residents Fume Over Lead Contamination of Soil in their Neighborhoods http://la.streetsblog.org/2014/03/20/im-a-teacher-im-pregnant-im-worried-residents-fume-over-lead-contamination-of-soil-in-their-neighborhoods/#.UyyaMvrmk2E.twitter … How to Age Wood Tutorial – http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/how-to-age-wood-tutorial-guest-post-from-que-linda … Dog Portrait from Corrugated Cardboard by Ali Golzad http://www....

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