Search Results for: label/soil/2011/04/making-it

653 results

Our new front yard, part 3: design

Avatar photo
Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening
3 Comments
...sely planted from above, but if you get down on your knees and look at the soil at ground level, there may be all sorts of bare soil between the plants. To avoid this, you plant in layers, from the ground up. They identify four types of functions for plants in your design: Ground cover plants: They emphasize the importance of ground cover plants as the base layer of the community. These are low, somewhat nondescript, spreading, shade tolerant plan...

Read…

Watering 101

Avatar photo
Gardening, How-to, Vegetable Gardening
13 Comments
...out. There is no formula. In the picture above, you see the surface of the soil in one of our raised beds. This is imported soil, the kind that comes in bags. It doesn’t hold water in pools like clay soil does, it doesn’t sink in fast as it would in sandy soil. It’s actually pretty tricky to water because it seems like it should sop up water well, but I think all the organic matter in it actually slows absorption. At any rate, I’d been watering th...

Read…

Day to day, our decisions count

Avatar photo
Back to the Garden
6 Comments
...licking on the tag to your left] *** Last week I introduced the subject of soil. Healthy soil is fundamental to a the loving landscape, to healthy people, to a healthy world. Initially, I’d imagined that I’d just do one post on soil and move on, but I realized that I’m going to need to linger in the topic and get my hands dirty, so to speak. Today I wanted to talk about how our behavior, particularly our consumer choices around food, impact the he...

Read…

Gardening Mistakes: Six Ways We’ve Killed Plants

Avatar photo
Gardening, Mistakes
25 Comments
...ertility When it comes to growing vegetables, in particular, you need rich soil. Get a soil test first. But soil fertility is a lot more than chemistry–it’s about life. Healthy soils have a rich and diverse microbial and fungal ecosystem. You can jump start that fertility with compost. But somehow we never have enough compost. 4. Bad nursery stock. I’ve bought my share of root bound plants and plants that came with diseases. The worst example I’ve...

Read…

Best Practices for Gardening in Contaminated Soil

Avatar photo
Gardening, Lead
3 Comments
...will improve soils in urban areas, resulting in reduced bioavailability of soil Pb and reduced fugitive dust. Plant uptake of Pb is also typically very low. The exceptions are low-growing leafy crops where soil-splash particle contamination is more likely and expaneded hypocotyl root vegetalbes (e.g. carrot). However even with higher bioaccumulation factors, it is not clear that the Pb in root vegetables or any other crop will be absorbed after ea...

Read…