Saturday Tweets: Compressed Air, Digging Down and Orange Marmalade

May 19, 2018

...8,000 acres of urban forest, according to a study published in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. https://t.co/eZw5XXnE5c via @AnthropoceneMag — Thomas Rainer (@ThomasRainerDC) May 17, 2018 'A pool in the basement is a clear marker of wealth': how the super-rich are digging down https://t.co/1zYqP2ALRl — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 15, 2018 More amazing work from garden mosaic master Jeffrey Bale: https://t.co/B0kueZQOGM — Root...

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The Great Water Conservation Grift

Mr. Homegrown

May 24, 2022

Gardening, Thoughtstylings, Water and Power, Water Conservation

5 Comments

...onceived water conservation policies have gone poorly when it comes to our urban landscapes. Take, for instance, LA’s horrible lawn replacement rebate program that ended up in the hands of fly by night operators who exploited their workers and left us with acres of gravel and plastic lawns. Or, since most homeowners don’t have any understanding of climate or horticulture, we just get dead lawns or, at best, decomposed granite and a few sad cacti....

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Hügelkultur in dry climates?

Mr. Homegrown

February 28, 2014

Gardening, Permaculture

44 Comments

...the logs break down they add organic matter and create, in theory, a rich soil full of air gaps, fungal and microbial life. But the thought of mounding anything in our dry climate doesn’t make sense to me. As I said in my post about the pros and cons of raised beds, if I didn’t have contaminated soil I’d grow my veggies in the ground. A Root Simple reader from Cyprus, which has a very similar climate as ours, said that Hügelkultur experiments the...

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The Miraculous Lavender

Mrs. Homegrown

July 25, 2014

Gardening, Herbs

14 Comments

...for months now. I don’t water it. I don’t send water down the stairs. The soil off the stairs is dry, because that slope is planted with natives, which are getting no irrigation. There’s no plumbing beneath the staircase, either. Yet the lavender keeps getting bigger. I’m going to have to pull it soon, before it ruins our stairs. But I don’t want to, because it’s so determined to live. And this goes to show that when a plant wants to grow somewhe...

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Yet More Reasons to Mulch

Mr. Homegrown

October 14, 2014

Gardening

4 Comments

...owner’s studies revealed that mulch changes soil structure so that mulched soils are able to absorb more water than un-mulched soils. And, most astonishingly, mulch provides habitat for beneficial fungi that repel the dreaded root rot organism Phytophthora cinnamomi. Downer is also a mulch myth buster: Adding a layer of mulch does not rob soil of nitrogen. And Eucalyptus mulch? Not a problem. His recommendation is to apply a layer of six inches of...

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