Are Rubber Mulches or Tires in the Garden a Good Idea?

April 14, 2015

Rubber mulches are used both as a soil cover and underneath artificial turf. Is this a good idea? According to “Garden Professor” Linda Chalker-Scott, the answer is no. She has a new fact sheet on the subject which concludes, Rubber mulches can be attractive, easy to find and apply, and may not need frequent re-application. However, there are significant problems associated with using these mulches. In the short term, rubber mulch is not as effec...

Read…

Anne Hars’ Top Ramen Keyhole Vegetable Garden

Mr. Homegrown

February 15, 2013

Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening

12 Comments

...ion supply stores and on order at Home Depot. It comes in 25 foot lengths. Soil for the bed came from the ground, from bagged soil that used to be in the wooden raised beds and from compost that Anne makes herself. “I’m going to plant things under things,” says Hars. As the winter garden reaches maturity Hars plans on putting warm season crops in under the winter greens. “It will be a lazy summer garden.” Ute, one Anne and Bill’s two chihuahuas, a...

Read…

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...

Read…

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...

Read…

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...

Read…