Search Results for: label/soil/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

968 results

A Warning About Straw

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Animals, Chickens, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
12 Comments
...often applied at such high rates that certain plants won’t grow in garden soil dressed with finished compost from a mix of sources, if one of those sources is a treated lawn or field. A quick bioassay will test for this in straw: peas sprouting from soil mixed with that straw will look deformed if the field that grew the straw was treated. Browns of a similar texture from a source you know to be clean should probably be used for a control group.”...

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A Self-Watering Container in a Pot

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Self Watering Containers
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...strident post about how we don’t care if our patio looks like a methamphetamine lab, and have dressed up one of our SWCs. Here’s how we did it: First we stuck our three gallon self watering container inside of a large pot we had sitting around. Next we filled the SWC with potting soil (note: you must use potting soil in a SWC). We filled the void between the SWC and the pot with rocks. We used a plastic garbage bag as a mulch layer to help hold i...

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Blueberries in a Self Watering Container

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Gardening, Self Watering Containers
10 Comments
...es, “Oneal” and “Misty” in bare root form earlier this year from Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. Blueberries require an acidic soil, of the sort you’d find in a wet forest climate, so we planted them in a self watering container with a home made soil mix made up of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 wood chips and 1/3 azalea mix. Their special soil requirements and shallow roots make blueberries an ideal plant for self watering containers. And attention apa...

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Self Watering Containers

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Self Watering Containers
22 Comments
...e in the bottom of the pot, there is instead a reservoir of water. Potting soil is suspended above the water reservoir by means of a perforated barrier. Circular “wicking chambers” reach down into the reservoir and draw water up to the plant’s roots. The reservoir is refilled by means of a pipe that comes out of the top of the pot and the soil in the pot is covered with a layer of plastic that acts as mulch. Depending on how deep the water reservo...

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Kent’s Composting Tips and Secret Weapon

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Composting, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
...bin that has direct soil contact. I think this allows the introduction of soil organisms and serves to drain the pile if it gets too wet. I’ve done this same process with free standing piles as well. I start with a small pile of dry leaves and add a load of kitchen scraps. I also add a couple shovels-full of rich soil to get things started, particularly with some worms and bugs to propagate the new pile. I’m not fastidious about what goes in, so...

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